Awesome Photorealistic Coloring TechniquesIn
this tutorial we will color a black and white photo using gradient
maps, solid colors, and the Color blending mode. Using these
techniques, you will be able to hand color any black and white photo in
a way that looks photorealistic.
Kyle
Pero has worked in the creative fields for many years now. With a
background in photography and graphic design he naturally became a
Photoshop whiz. Now he works in advertising doing photographic
retouching, but also does freelance design and illustration work.
Final Image Preview
Before we get started, let's take a look at the image we'll be
creating. Before and after images are shown below. Click the screenshot
to view a large color version. As always, the full Photoshop file is
available via our PSDTUTS Plus membership.
Step 1
Double-click on the background image to make it an active layer.
Create a new group by clicking on the little folder icon located at the
bottom of the layers palette and put the layer in the group. Name the
group "girl". Draw a path around all the hard edges of the girl. This
includes the face and the shoulders. Don't worry about the hair for
now; we will do that separately. Save the path. Make a selection of the
path by holding Command-clicking on the path thumbnail in the paths
palette. Hit Alt+Command+D and Feather the selection by 0.5px. Apply
the selection as a mask on the "girl" group.
Step 2
Disable the mask on the "girl" group by holding Shift-clicking on
the mask thumbnail. Now in the Channels palette, duplicate the red
channel by dragging it to the New Channel button at the bottom of the
palette. Apply a harsh curve, like the one below, to separate the hair
from the background as much as you can.
Step 3
Hit Command+I to invert the red copy channel. Re-enable the mask on
the "girl" group. Load the selection of the red copy channel with your
background color set to white. Hit Delete(backspace) to fill the
selection with white on the "girl" mask. If you hit Alt+Click on the
mask thumbnail, you can see the mask as a channel. Clean up anything
that looks as though it shouldn't be there, like that line between the
hair and the face.
Step 4
Now let's start to add some color using a Gradient Map. In the
"girl" group, make a new Gradient Map adjustment layer just above layer
0. Hit OK without doing anything and set the Gradient Map layer's
blending mode to Color. Now double-click on the Gradient Map's layer
thumbnail to open up the settings again.
A Gradient Map uses the grayscale data from the image below it to
apply the gradient that you create. The left side of the gradient
represents the darkest parts of the image. The right side represents
the light parts. We need to make a gradient that represents what the
woman's skin tone might look like from dark to light. I used the
gradient below.
Step 5
Draw a path around the eyes. Load the selection of the path and
Feather it 0.5px as we did before. Make a Curves adjustment layer just
above the skin layer. Then lighten the eyes a little bit. Now make a
Gradient Map layer just above the curves layer and hit OK before
adjusting any settings. Set the new Gradient Map layer's blending mode
to color. Now hit Alt+Command+G to apply it as a clipping mask to the
curves layer. Now change the Gradient Map's settings to a pink-to-white
fade like below.
Step 6
Draw a path around just the iris of the eye. Note that we need only
the path to follow that one curve between the iris and the whites
because the adjustment we are making will be applied as a clipping
mask. Load the selection and Feather it 2px. Make a solid color
adjustment layer just above the Gradient Map from the previous step.
Then set it to a dark faded green. Hit Alt+Command+G to apply it to the
same clipping mask you made earlier. Set the blending mode of the green
layer to color. You might have to go back and adjust the green until
you get a color that looks real.
Step 7
Repeat all the previous steps for the lips, except for this one
we'll leave the blending mode of the Gradient Map to Normal, and set
the layer's Opacity to 65%.
Step 8
We need to get more variance of color in the skin tones to make it
look more real. I made some selections around the eyes, nose, and
cheeks. Then I feathered them 20–40px, created solid color adjustment
layers, set the blending modes to Color, and brought the Opacity way
down to 10-20%. Below you can see my selections as quick masks. The
layer palette shows the colors I used for the different areas. As you
can see I used some red to add some blush to the cheeks, some red
around the nose, mouth and eyes, and some blue to go on the bags of her
eyes. These small details make all the difference.
Step 9
Make a loose selection around the face and neck and feather it 50px.
Make a curves adjustment layer just above the 'skin' Gradient Map that
we made earlier. I just went in and tweaked the colors a bit to get a
little more color variation in the skin tone. You can download the
curve file I used here.
Step 10
Now we need to make a selection of the hair. I used the path that I
saved from Step 1. Then I modified it a little to line up with the
hairline's shape and softness. I did this by using Quick Mask Mode(Q),
and using brushes of various sizes and softness to match the hairline.
Make a new Gradient Map adjustment layer at the top of the "girl"
group. Make the gradient a similar to the image below. I left the
blending mode at Normal for this layer.
Step 11
Make a selection of the shirt. Then make a new Gradient Map
adjustment layer. Hit OK and set the blending mode to Color, as we have
done before. Edit the gradient so that it looks something like the one
below. You will have to play around with the gradient until you get a
good separation between the green and white stripes.
Step 12
Choose a Sky image. I used one I shot myself, but there are plenty
of stock images you could use. Bring it into the document below the
"girl" group. Hit Command+T, and size it to fill the frame. It looks
good, but notice that our hair mask still isn't really looking that
good against the blue background. The hair turns a muddy gray in the
transition between hair and sky. To fix this, make a new blank layer
just above Layer 0 (the image of the girl). With a large and soft black
brush paint over those areas with an Opacity of 15-25% until the
transition looks better.
As an added bonus, I applied the techniques from the Super Quick and Easy Facial Retouching
tutorial to smooth out her face a little bit. As you can tell, I
decided to make her red haired, but you can make your gradients
whatever color you would like. She just seemed like a redhead to me.
Here is the final image.
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