I always wanted to hand color photos but decided it was too much of a headache
because my fine motor skills aren't so wonderful and I hate getting my hands
dirty. Apparently, I was "born to program." Adobe Photoshop, however, enables
even the klutziest to hand color.
Here are the steps:
- Load picture off PhotoCD
- In Photoshop 3.0, use the "Desaturate" command to remove all the color. In
Photoshop 2.5.1, convert the image to greyscale mode and then back to RGB. Either
way, you now have a B&W image in a file that can take color.
- Pull down Make Snapshot.
- Double click on the Rubberstamp icon and choose "From Saved" and then pick a
nice wide brush. Drag the mouse to restore color from the original image to any
part of the current B&W image.
- Double click on the Rubberstamp icon again and choose "From Snapshot". Now
choose a fine brush and go over any boo-boo areas where you restored color
inadvertently. (You are restoring the image from the snapshot you made of the
B&W image.)
- Print to Fujix 3000 photographic quality printer and sell as one of those "I
spent 8 hours hand coloring this" art prints.
Before |
After (I burned
the sky in a bit also and reduced the color saturation slightly.)
Text and pictures
copyright 1995 Philip
Greenspun
philg@mit.edu