Color your Black and White Photos Easily

Ever watched a Digitally Remastered Film and wondered how they colored in the black and white frames?

I think we all have at some stage and the answer is simple: they painted it frame by frame.

Now I'm not sure to the techniques used in painting film frame by frame, but I can sure help you out with your black and white photographs! Ever had a photograph you wished was in color? Read on and find out how to color it in using nothing more than the Brush Tool and Curve Adjustments.

Step 1 - Scan your Image and Open up in Photoshop

Scan in your black and white image and open it up in photoshop, or if you're going to be following along with this tutorial (which I assume you are) then you can download our starting image HERE, or click on the image below to be taken to the photographers website:

Step 2 - Create your First Curves Adjustment

With our black and white image on our canvas we're going to go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves. Name this layer Skin. Now, on the curves Panel (If you can't see it, go to Window>Adjustments) Click the dropdown menu and instead of RGB, Select Red. To create the skin color we're going to Push the slider for Red up slightly, then use the dropdown menu to navigate to Blue, and push the slider down.

Now Click on the Mask contained in the Skin Adjustment Layer and hit CTRL/CMD+I to invert the mask, this will mask the color we just created.

Step 3 - Start to paint

The way masks work is simple, Anything that's painted white on the mask, will show the content of the layer, while anything painted black will hide it. Press X to reset your color palatte to black and white and use a soft brush with 0% Hardness and 100% Opacity to Start painting the skin color onto the figure. Hit X to swap between black and white if you need to erase parts that you've accidentally colored in.

Color in all parts of the skin, making sure to avoid, eyes, lips, hair and clothing. Change the size of the brush as needed (Use hotkeys [ and ] to make the brush larger or smaller). Make sure to use a small brush when painting in detailed areas.

When working close to the hair, try not to paint over too much of it, otherwise it will get tedious when it's time to paint the hair in.

Once you've filled in all of the skin, you'll have something like below, don't worry if the skin colors not spot on, we'll tweak it later.

Step 3 - The Lips

Create a new Curves Layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves) and name it Lips. Now, like before we're going to push the Red curve up, and push the Green and Blue curves down.

Click on the Lips Mask, and Press CTRL/CMD + I to invert it, use the same technique to paint the lips, adjusting the size of the brush as needed.

Step 4 - Hair

By now you should be getting the hang of this process. Create a new Curves Layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves) and name it Hair. Adjust the Red, Green and Blue like below to get the desired color (or you can experiment with your own color!).

Again, select the hair mask, and press CTRL/CMD + I to invert the hair mask and begin painting the hair, adjusting the brush size as needed.

When painting the stray and thin hairs, simply use a tiny brush and set it's Opacity to 50%.

Once you've finish the hair you should have something like this

Step 5 - Eyes

Now We'll color in the eyes, Create a new Curves Layer, name it Eyes. Push up the blue a lot, and push down the Red and Green a little, make sure the blue is over the top.

Invert the Mask and paint over the eyes.

Simply lower the Opacity of the Eyes layer until you have an eye color that looks natural.

Step 6 - Fill in the Details

Now use the steps you've learned above to color in the remainder of the image. I used the red Lips layer to color in the figures nails, bow on her bra and the center of her cross.

Create a new Curves layer and Name it Gold, play around with the Red, Green and Gold curves until you get a golden color, use it to color in the chain.

Create a new Curves layer, make it a pink color and use it to color in the bra

We're nearly done! All we need to do is tweak a few of the Curves layers. Select the skin layer, and if you want to give the figure a tan, simply push down the RGB curve a bit. If you want the figure to be a bit paler, simply push the RGB curve up.

Play with all the other RGB curves to finish up your image. I've lightened the figures skin tone and darkened her hair, I've also applied some Opacity to the Gold layer to make it less extreme.

As always, the PSD to this tutorial is available for download below.