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Project #18 - Hand Tinting/Colouring

Variation #1 - Blend Modes

For as long as traditional photography has been around there has been a technique known as hand tinting. What this meant was that if a photographer wanted to add color or replace a color on a photograph they would need to get out a small paintbrush and a set of specialised paints. The job was sometimes painstaking and labourious, and, if a mistake was made more times than not the project was ruined.

In the age of the "Digital Darkroom" this same technique can be applied by using art packages like Adobe Photoshop, Paintshop Pro etc. Within Photoshop itself, there are at least three different ways to add color to a black and white image by applying color Variations, Hue & Saturation, or by using the Layers palette blend modes.

This tutorial will show you how to add colour using the Layers palette Blend Modes. In itself you can achieve different results by using Blend Modes like Overlay, Multiply, Soft Light, Color etc. We will be using the Color blending mode.

If you do not have a black and white image at hand, use a color image with all color drained from it - do this my using the Desaturate command from the Image... Adjust menu.

  

  1. Hold down the Alt key and click on the Create New Layer icon in the Layers palette. Give it the name of the color you are about to use. In my case it was Reds.

  2. From the Blend mode drop-down list, select the Color option. When you paint now, you will see the texture from the image on the layer below come through, including its hi-lights and shadows.

  3. Zoom into the area you want to paint by either pressing the Z key or by clicking on the Magnifying tool in the tool box. From the Brush palette choose a decent sized brush.

  4. The final step in the preparation is to select your colour. Do this by clicking on the desired color either from the Color palette, or by clicking on the foreground colour on the Tool Box to bring up the Color dialogue box. You are now ready to begin painting the first color.[Colour Palette]

  5. To add the new colour to your image, just paint like you would normally with the paintbrush, making sure not to go over the edges.

  6. To add a new color, create a new layer, change the Blend mode to Color, choose your new color and begin painting. Repeat this until you have finished the image.

[Layers Palette]

So my examples color did not look too bold I adjusted the opacity of each colored layer to 70%. Give it a go and see what you think. For a bit of fun, change the Blend mode to something else, just to see what effects you come up with.

 
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