I have some black and whites I've taken with my digital camera, but I'd like to edit them and add just a splash of color. Like making the subjects eyes blue when the rest of the pic is black and white. Does anyone know of software I can use the achieve this? I've used Photoshop, and I'm most familiar with it, so that's where this is coming from. But I've also heard rave reviews for Gimp! on the answer boards, so you might want to look at that program, to.
Photoshop has a menu called "Layers", and I would recomend using it for this. What you do is import your digital photo into Photoshop and the program will automatically make it the base layer. Go to the layer menu and tell it to create another layer. You will have the option of naming the layer; "Layer 1" is the default name if you choose not to. In the computer's mind, this layer is "sitting" on top of your photograph the way a pane of glas would in real life. The same way the paints you choose to use on the glass in reality affect how your finished product looks, your digital photo's look depends on how you use paints in Photoshop's virtual reality. (More on this in a minute.)
The layer menu has a dialog box that you can type in percentages to say how opaque you want the paints to be. If you want 100% opacity, they will look like paints sitting on top of a b&w photo. If you type in a lower opacity, say 58 to 65%, they will look more like stained glass. This affects the OVERALL opacity of the layer.
Also, the paints themsleves can be made more or less opaque. So you could use a layer set to 100% opacity and paints set to 60% opacity to achieve similar results. This affects the opacity of INDIVIDUAL pixels; as you use the paints they become more opaque.
Say you put down a blue at 60% opacity and then decide to paint a green dot over it, also at 60%. You would have a bluegreen dot, because the green was somewhat transparent. But the b&w base layer would not be as visible through it as the rest of the blue, because 60% plus 60% makes the dot more opaque than the rest of the blue.
Depending on how many pixels your photo has, you could have some details in the eyes, roses, etc, that you don't want to loose. Many people's eyes have striations or darker circles at the edge of their irises, and also slight variations in color, like brown eyes with just a little green. And 3-D objects have important shadows and highlights which vary slightly in color and contribute to a photograph's feeling of depth.
!!!!TRYING TO DUPLICATE THESE DETAILS WITH OPAQUE PAINTS AND LAYERS WOULD DRIVE YOU INSANE!!!!
During my own recovery from such attempts, I found my prefered method was to set the layer to 60% opacity and use opaque paints (which would still be 60% because the layer controls the overall opacity) to see which basic colors I liked. Then I would lower the layer's percentage to slightly paler than I wanted and use paints at different opacities to adjust the colors. Finally, I would increase or decrease the layer's opacity to whatever looked best.
Experience really is the best teacher with stuff like this; the more you practice, the better you'll be at it. I don't know of any software, but there are colored pens made specifically for what you want to do. I can't remember what they are called, but if you look at a photography site that sells supplies, you can probably find them. Adobe Photoshop is the best choice for this, but it is pricey. A free alternative is Gimp, which is good and should handle most of your needs. Corel Photo Paint, just a few mouse clicks and they are coloured. It's not that easy though... I do that a lot with various B&W wedding images I take. I'll color just the bouquet or the eyes of the bride.
There is no doubt that Photoshop CS2 is the software for it. All you have to do is create a layer mask and adjust the color for a specific area of the image. It takes a whole 30 seconds to do it right. |
