Colorizing Black and White Photos Photoshop Tutorial

Learn how to turn a black and white photo into color. This tutorial will teach you how to use non-destructive adjustment layers to color an image. This method lets you make modifications anytime and in return, let you create noticeably better results than just using a single raster layer.

Step 1

Open a black and white photo into Photoshop. This can be done by going to File> Open, browsing for the photo, and clicking OK. Here's the black and white photo that I'll be using for this tutorial:

Step 2

First, we're not going to create a new layer and paint all the colors in that layer like many other tutorials teach you. Instead, we'll use a Solid Color adjustment layer. This will let you modify the color anytime you want so that you can tweak the colors once you're done all the painting. This is very important because we usually don't get the color correct the first time and need to make adjustments after we're done. To add a Sold Color adjustment layer, click on the "New Adjustment Layer" button in the Layers pallet. This should open a menu where you can select Solid Color.

Step 3

Once you clicked "Solid Color", you'll see a "Pick a solid color:" window where you can select the color. First, we'll select the color of the skin. It doesn't matter if you pick the correct color, just make sure that the hue is correct. For example, for this skin tone I'll pick an orange. It doesn't matter if it's a light or dark orange, I'll just pick any orange for now because I can edit it layer when I have all the colors in place. Start off with the skin tone, so pick roughly the same color as I did.

Step 4

Now you should see a solid orange color in your image. Don't worry, in the Layers pallet, change the blend mode to Color. This will make this Sold adjustment layer only affect the color of the layer below. Your photo should now have a orange tint.