Colorizing B&W Photography with Adobe Photoshop

Students, this project will strengthen your skills in photoshop, especially with the Selection Tools, Layers and Blending Modes, which are some of the most commonly used tools. Image manipulation is important for photo compositions, which are commonly used in print advertising.

Part 1: Download a black and white photo, or find a color photo and convert it to black and white with Photoshop. Feel free to use your own photography. You can also try websites like Shorpy.com for high resolution B&W images.

Part 2: In Photoshop there are several ways to colorize a photo. Here is the basic idea of the colorization process:

• Open your image in Photoshop and create a new blank Layer using the Layer Palette
• Set this new Layer's Blending Mode to "Darken"
• Take a Selection Tool, such as the Magic Wand Tool, Lasso Tool, or Magnetic Lasso Tool and select an area to colorize over your photo
• Fill this Selection with the color of your choice, the "Darken" Blending Mode will make this color mix with your original black and white photo
• You could also simply use a single layer with the blend mode set to darken, and paint the color on with the paintbrush tool. Turn the hardness setting up and use smaller brushes for detail
• It's up to you to decide the color scheme, you can use realistic colors, vibrant colors or try using a Tetradic or Quadrilateral color palette for experimental results
• Continue these processes until the entire photo has been colorized
• Due tuesday!

Have fun!

- Mr.Wilson