Paint in Colour on a Black and White Photo

In this Photoshop tutorial, the technique that we are going to use is called hand-tinting. We are going to start off with a colour photograph, turn it black and white and paint an object in colour again. Pick a photo and think so long of the object/objects that you want to keep the colour of.


Open a photo of your choice in Photoshop.

We are now going to convert it to black and white. Go to Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Black and White. Give it a name if you like.

In the Adjustments tab you can make the colours in your black and white photograph lighter or darker. I'm going to make the water lighter, so I'm taking the Cyan slider and dragging it to the right.

When you're happy with your photo, we are going to hide the black and white layer. Click on the eye icon next to the black & white layer in your layers palette.

Pick your Magic wand or Quick selection tool (Shortcut - W). I'm going to use the Quick selection tool, because I'm going to select an object with different colours. Select your object or the shade of colour.

Now, hide your selection by pressing Ctrl + H.

Turn on the visibility of the black and white layer again.

Pick the brush tool. Make your foreground colour black and set the opacity to 100%. You can lower the opacity if you like.

Start painting on the place you made your selection earlier and you'll see the colour coming through. You don't have to worry about going over the lines, because it is only going to paint inside of the lines of the selection you made.

And there you go!

Make your own - I would like to see it! Just attach it in the comments.

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