How to convert a black and white photo to color in Photoshop? How to make a black and white photo color in Photoshop in three different ways

12.10.2019

Hello! With you, as usual, I, Dmitry Kostin. And today we will photoshop again. Remember how we did? Be that as it may, this is not surprising, since it is not difficult to discolor an image. But how to do black and white photo colored? Is that possible?

Of course available. Already entire films are coloring. What is there to make some image color? But it's still a very interesting experience. Can you imagine? You can think of the colors you would like to see in this photo. For example, you can set the color of eyes, hair, skin, clothing and much more. This is how I colored old photos. It turned out funny)

Let me not make long introductions. Let's start coloring right now. Open any b/w photo (I chose a photo I found on the Internet).

Just look at what mode the photo is in right away. It's just possible that it is saved in the format "Greyscale", then you just won't be able to work with color.

Change the color mode to RGB. To do this, go to the top menu and select the item "Image" - "Mode". Well, if it's not the RSL, then put it.

Let's look at the first method, namely the familiar one.

Overlay Options

Here is another fairly effective trick for coloring photos. The main thing here is to create a separate layer for each element. I took new photo for these needs.

By the way, this was the very first method that I learned about. When I found out about it, I liked it so much that I colored a lot of photos).

Layer mask

Well, the last way of transformation for today is with the help of a layer mask. Let's get straight to the point.

Well, in the end it turns out beautiful color photography and she looks completely different. Oops, I just screwed up a little. But you can always fix this.

I never cease to be amazed at the power of Photoshop. Indeed, in many cases the same problem can be solved in several ways, and you yourself can choose the method that suits you best. By the way, which one do you like best? Or do you have your own way of how to make a black and white photo color in Photoshop, which I have not described here? Please write in the comments.

If you want to as soon as possible explore the possibilities of Photoshop and learn how to work with it, I strongly recommend that you look great video course. Everything is told in detail in it, everything is told in human language and laid out on the shelves. The material is easy to digest. So I recommend.

Well, I'm done for today. I hope you enjoyed my article. Be sure to subscribe to my blog updates, then you will always be aware of the most relevant information on the blog. I will not spam. Promise). And I wish you good luck in mastering Photoshop. Bye Bye!

Sincerely, Dmitry Kostin.

Are you curious to see what black and white photographs from your old albums would look like if they were colorized? Think you need to spend a lot of time in Photoshop for this? It turns out that you can make an image in color using a special online program! But let's talk about everything in order.

Colorize a black and white photo online in one click in Algorithmia

In order to make a picture black and white online, dozens of Internet resources have been created, but only one is provided for the reverse function - Algorithmia. The work of this unusual site is built on practical application neural networks. In addition to the fact that he can convert an image from black and white to color, he can also:

determine the area depicted in the photo;
to distinguish the faces of people in the pictures;
analyze the positive/negative mood of the given text;
and much more.

Algorithmia has an English-language interface, but since the section we need - Colorize Photos - implies only one function, working with it does not cause any difficulties.

So, upload your bw photo, which we are going to colorize - this can be done by selecting a picture on a computer or by entering a link to its location on the Internet.

If you just want to test how to turn a black and white photo into a color one, you can choose one of the pictures offered here for an example.

The coloring process takes about half a minute. Next, we are offered to evaluate the photo before and after.

Move the purple slider to see the effect of the changes

You can save both a fully colored drawing and the comparison itself - a photo partially in color and partially in b/w. I was a little disappointed with the watermark on the finished picture, but it is quite compact and modestly located in the corner. You can get rid of it by simply cropping the image.

Through several experiments, we found out that the service copes best with painting skin, water and trees. The clearer their boundaries, the better the result.

Let's compare - on the left is the original photo, which we discolored and uploaded to the site, and on the right - its colorized version

As you can see, Algorithmia distinguishes people well and automatically colors the skin in beige tones. True, the service does not feel the borders very well, so the cardigan, just in case, was also made flesh-colored.

In the background behind the girl, the editor "didn't recognize" the Christmas tree, so he left it just a dark spot. But he clearly defined the color of the gift and jeans and did almost everything right, except for the beige leg in the foreground and very blurry borders. The service decided to “revive” the bird in the corner of the picture, so it made it yellowish.

In general, of course, there are certain flaws in the result, but all the same, Algorithmia deserves respect, if only because it is the only site that allows you to turn a black and white photo into color.

How to colorize a picture in Photoshop: a simple guide for beginners

We want to say right away that this method will require much more time than the previous one. Also here you will need minimal skills in Photoshop, and the more of them, the more beautiful the result will be.

Load the image into Photoshop and create a new empty layer. Next, use the "Quick Selection" tool and click on the objects that we are going to convert to one color.

Use the Alt key to deselect unwanted area

Select the "Brush" tool suitable color and sketch the selected fragments.

If you want the shades to be not too saturated, you can reduce the opacity and pressure of the brush.
In order to preserve the presence of shadows and color transitions, change the layer blending mode to "Overlay"
It already looks much more natural.

We repeat the same operations with the rest of the objects in the photo. Recall the sequence:

create a new layer;
select a fragment;
apply the desired color;
change the layer's blend mode.

For convenience, it is better to name each new layer in accordance with the fragment being painted.

If the edges are not handled too carefully, then this will definitely be noticeable and the picture will look unnatural. We recommend using the "Gaussian Blur" function with a small radius to smooth out all the imperfections a little.

In the "Filter" section, select "Blur", and then - "Gaussian Blur". Then just control the radius until you achieve an organic result.

Let's see what happened in the end. On the left is the original photo, which we then discolored, on the right is its color version.

In general, the new image looks quite natural, although many shades are different from those in original version

Summing up, we can say that making a black and white photo color in Photoshop is much more difficult and longer than using an online service. For comparison, let's say that the whole process took us more than an hour, although in Algorithmia everything would be ready in a few seconds. True, the result in Photoshop is more organic and predictable, and you can control all the moments yourself.

So far, these are all ways to colorize a black and white photo. Therefore, decide what is more important for you - efficiency or quality of the result, and rather use all the advice received in practice!

Many at least once thought about the restoration of old black and white photographs. Most of pictures from the so-called soapboxes were digitized, but did not find colors. The solution to the problem of converting a decolorized image into color is very difficult, but to some extent accessible.

Converting a black and white photo to color

If done color photo simple in black and white, then solving the problem in the opposite direction becomes much more difficult. The computer needs to understand exactly how to color this or that fragment, consisting of a large number pixels. With recently this issue is dealt with by the site presented in our article. So far, this is the only high-quality option that works in automatic processing mode.

Colorize Black is developed by Algorithmia, which implements hundreds of other interesting algorithms. This is one of the new and successful projects that managed to surprise netizens. It is based on artificial intelligence based on a neural network, which selects the necessary colors for the loaded image. Frankly, the processed photo does not always meet expectations, but today the service shows amazing results. In addition to files from a computer, Coloriz Black can work with pictures from the Internet.

Save image divided by purple line in half (1);
Save the fully colorized photo (2).

Your picture will be downloaded to your computer via your browser. In it looks something like this:

The results of image processing show that artificial intelligence based on a neural network has not yet thoroughly learned how to turn black and white photos into color ones. However, it works well with photographs of people and paints their faces more or less well. Although the colors in the example of the article were chosen incorrectly, the Colorize Black algorithm still picked up some shades successfully. As long as it's the only one current version automatic conversion of a decolorized image to color.

There are many ways in Photoshop to convert a color image to black and white.

Now we will show the 4 most popular ways.

Open your photo in Photoshop.

Let's start by introducing you to two of the easiest ways to convert to black and white.

1 - function Grayscale(grayscale)

2 - function discolor(Desaturation)

We do not argue, these are the most simple ways but the quality is not the best. Here the contrast is very low, the image is slightly hazy.

Let's show with an example:

1. Grayscale

Image - Mode - Grayscale(Image - Mode - Grayscale)

Very simple, right?

2. Discolor

Image - Correction - Desaturate(Image - Adjustments - Desaturate)

Quick and easy - but the image contrast is very low, the image looks dull and flat. Not at all what we are striving for. What we especially like about high quality b&w photos - so it's depth and high contrast. Alright - it's time to introduce you to some more serious techniques!

3. Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

The method we are going to tell you about is to use multiple adjustment layers. Hue/Saturation. This means that you can return to the original view at any time. Plus, you are NOT modifying the original image. Now go to the menu Layers - New Adjustment Layer - Hue/Saturation(Layers - New Adjustment layer - Hue / Saturation).

Leave all layer properties unchanged. Change the layer blend mode from Ordinary(Normal) on Chroma(Color).

Then add another adjustment layer Hue/Saturation(Hue/Saturation) - but this time move the slider in the layer properties Saturation(Saturation) to -100.

So get ready... This is what the image looks like now:

Now the fun begins! Double click on the first adjustment layer you made, or just open the properties. And now the slider Color tone(Hue) Move to this position until you are satisfied with the resulting effect. You can also work with Saturation ( Saturation ) .

These are the settings we used to get the image you see below. Now it looks much better, although it still seems that something is missing...

Now for this newly created layer, change the blending mode from Chroma(Color) on overlap(Overlay) and scale it down a bit. Opacity(Opacity), in our case up to 65%.

Here's what happened now. The contrast has increased markedly. No detail is lost, giving depth to the image.

Note that each image requires individual approach. What suits this image may not suit yours. So don't be afraid to experiment with settings, layers and modes on your own :)

4. Channel mixing

The last way you'll learn about in this tutorial is to use an adjustment layer. mixingchannels(Channel Mixer). With the original image active, go to the menu Layers - New Adjustment Layer - Channel Mixer(Layers - New Adjustment Layer - Channel mixer).

When this window appears, check the box next to the function Monochrome(Monochrome).

Now adjust the shades of black and white simply by moving the sliders that correspond to the red (red), green (green), and blue (blue) colors of the image. Important: try to keep the total number of values around 100 to avoid blurry areas in your image. We set the red and green channels to 0 and the blue to 100. This gives the skin an intense black and white tone.

Final step: duplicate the adjustment layer. Then change the blend mode from Ordinary(Normal) on overlap(Overlay) and reduce Opacity(Opacity), for example, for this image it turned out 44% - but often it is necessary to lower it to 20-30%. Look - below is the result of our labors.

It's a very atmospheric image. Looking forward to your impressions. We hope this article has given you a lot of useful information.

See you in the next lesson!

You can step over the edges, it's even better to do it. After you have painted over all areas of the skin without missing a single pixel, press the "Quick Mask" button again. A selection should appear. Make sure all the skin gets into it:

Go to the top menu "Layers", select "New Layer Fill", then "Color", you can give the layer a name. Select the mode "Soft light", press "OK" - a palette appears where you need to choose a color:

With skin, this is not easy, you need to look for yellow and pink shades. If you can’t find a natural color in any way, then choose the tone that best suits your skin color, we’ll try to correct it later. Click OK.
We go to the "Layers" window and see that a new fill layer has appeared there, consisting of two parts. Click on the second part in the form of a black square, a white frame should appear around it.

In the tools, we should still have the "Brush" active with the same settings. The main color on the toolbar should be black - this is important. Now the brush will work like an eraser. We remove everything superfluous - what we painted over by accident, leaving the color only on the skin. We try to do it carefully:

So, we have painted the skin to correct its color, go to the "Layers" window, select the fill layer and make a duplicate of it.

Now in the new layer, double-click on the colored square - a palette appears. Select another color that will be superimposed on the first layer and blended with it. You can mix pink and yellow shades, then you get a natural tone:

Now go to the "Background copy" layer, click again " Quick mask” and continue to paint, creating new fill layers. Do not forget to return to the main layer every time, otherwise nothing will work.

In the example, we dyed the hair in Brown color, then lips in red:

And the iris of the eyes is painted green. Next, make the clothes purple:

Then a blue background, since our model is sitting by the water. and painted separately green trees, reflected in the water, as well as the boards on which she sits, although they are almost imperceptible. Details are always important. Result:

It is especially interesting to colorize retrophotos. if you have family archives with rare photographs, now they do not need to be carried to the workshop, but can be digitized and made in color on their own.

Having mastered this technique, you can also do color on black and white in Photoshop. This is a rather original solution, you have probably seen such photos.

For example, in the image below, we gave the girl red lips and turquoise eyes, leaving everything else in black and white:

In exactly the same way, you can change the tones in color photos, for example, change the color of hair, clothing, background, and so on.