Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Coloring a Photo

At first, open the prepared photo. Convert it to PSD (Adobe Photoshop's format).

Coloring a Photo image 1

Divide the photo to layers. I divided it to: hair, clothes, eyes and (the most important!) skin. Read below how to do this.

Hair - go to 'Select-Color range' and click on the hair. Set Fuzziness to 100% and click OK.
Deselect the parts that do not belong to the hair and then Layer via Copy.

Clothes - Select it with the Polygonal Lasso Tool and then Layer via Copy.

Eyes - Choose the Lasso Tool and select it (Feather 0 px). Layer via Copy.

Skin - Carefully select it with the Pen tool. Layer via Copy, certainly.

Ok, you have done with the selections. Now let's proceed to the coloring part (the most interesting).

Download here the file with coloring settings (don't install it yet).
Select the layer named 'Skin'. Go to Image-Adjustments-Variations, click on the 'Load' button and load the file you've downloaded. Click on OK.

Coloring a Photo image 2

Select the layer with the hair. Go to Image-Adjustments-Hue/Saturation. Tick the 'Colorize' cell. I suggest you to use these settings: Hue 40, Saturation 21. After that, you can try to make it brighter using Variations.

Set the color of eyes, but don't overcolor. Desaturate the white using Sponge Tool.

Desaturate the eyebrows using Sponge Tool. Set the flow to 25%. Desaturate the nostrils.
Desaturate a little bit the beard and the moustache. Sharp all these using Sharpen Tool.

Now, we will change a little bit the skin.
Go to Hue/Saturation and set the following parameters: Hue: -2, Saturation: -18
Go to Variations and give the skin more saturation and yellow color (in Midtones section). Remember not to overcolor.

Yes, there are still some orange and brown areas. Let's reduce it. Go to 'Select-Color Range' and hit the chin shadows. Set Fuzziness to 70. (Don't select the lips). Slightly desaturate these areas using Variations or Hue/Saturation.

Select the lips and go to Variations - Midtones. Feather 1/6. One click on Red, Magenta and Cyan.

That's all.

Coloring a Photo Tutorial: Final Result

P.S. See here how not to color your photo. Avoid these styles.