How to colorize black and white photo?
In this tutorial you will learn how to colorize black and white photo with Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 and above. You can see my final result here ยป
LEVEL: Intermediate/Advanced
WHAT YOU HAVE TO KNOW: Clone objects, Change blend mode, Make complex selections
SOURCE PNG: colorize-bw-photo.png
Introduction - Have you seen those dull attempts to add color to B/W photo by putting some plain color spots and setting blend mode to “color”? I try to find better solution and this is the result. It is simple technique, but is requires more time to complete. It is better if you have tablet, but you can complete the tutorial with mouse as well.
Step 1 - Find color image with appropriate colors to reference from it. Google is right place to start. Open images.
Step 2 - Clone B/W image (Ctrl+Shift+D) and mask skin part. Like below. Name masked object - “skin mask”. (It is not goal of this tutorial to teach you how to create masks/selections. If you want to learn that, try great tutorials from Joyce Evans here or from Cbtcafe here)
Step 3 - Clone masked skin part and set blend mode to “Luminosity” and opacity to “~40%”. This step is necessary for producing more realistic results later. I will name that object “luma”.
Step 4 - Select brush tool and change it`s settings to opacity “~50%”, blend mode to “Tint”.
Step 5 - Careful select colors from color reference picture (hold down Alt while working with brush tool) and paint to B/W image (”skin mask”) with it.
Trick is to choose right appropriate color and paint small parts of image with it. Do not make big spots with same color. This add life to drawing. The brush we choose is soft and low opacity to make brush strokes unnoticeable, so paint bravely ;-)
Step 7 - Do the same thing with hair part
Step 8 - You can play with opacity, saturation or levels of “skin mask” object to achieve more vivid results, but be careful. Do not overdo it.
Have questions? Always download source PNG files for the tutorial. There are hidden secrets in them ;-) Or use comments below! English is not my native language! I hope you point me to any errors I have. See you next time.
