Using Photoshop Layers to Colorize Artwork

Photoshop is a great program for colorizing black and white artwork. You can use Photoshop special effects to achieve a look that you can't duplicate in other programs. First you'll need some black and white art. I drew this picture of my son as a superhero in Adobe Illustrator, but you can use this technique to colorize sketches or any other artwork that is scanned is as a grayscale. If you do scan the artwork in grayscale mode, make sure you switch to RGB before you're done.

1. Open or paste your artwork into photoshop. The art should be in black and white or grayscale
2. Go to the IMAGE menu, choose the MODE submenu and the RGB option. RGB has a wider gammut (bigger set of colors) than CMYK and allows you to work with a few more filters.
3. If you're artwork was imported in a flattened state, we'll need to convert the layer so that we can work with it. You can tell if an image has been flattened by looking in the layers palette. The file will have a layer called background with an italicized name and a little lock next to it.

4. Double Click on the background layer to convert it.
5. Give the layer a name if you wish

6. Click the OK button.

We're ready to work on colorizing this image. You could probably colorize this image by filling it with the paint bucket, but that's a destructive way to edit...once you color an area, you don't have a lot of flexibility about changing colors, etc. We're going to colorize and give ourselves flexibility to change our minds in the long run.

First, we need to set the color mode of the artwork layer to MULTIPLY, this will let the color of what's behind this layer show trough.

1. On the layers palette select the layer popup mode and choose multiply.

2. Now let's lock this layer to prevent us from damaging or coloring over it. Make sure the layer is select and click on the lock layers icon.

3. Great, now we can start creating layers of color behind the image. On the layers palette click on the create a new layer icon.

4. Well need to move this layer behind the artwork layer. Click and drag on the newly created layer and move it behind the original artwork layer.

5. You may want to rename the layers so that they make more sense. I'll rename this new layer tshirt since I'm going to use it to color the shirt. I'll go ahead and rename the other layer as well.

Now, we're ready to colorize.

1. Make sure the new layer is selected
2. Click on the paintbrush tool
3. Choose a good size brush
4. Start painting with the brush tool.

You'll notice drawing right on top of the black areas of the artwork will not affect the original, this is because you've locked the layer with the original artwork and you've set the mode to multiply. Remember what your momma always told you and stay within the lines.

Hints: You can use the [ and ] keys to make your brush bigger and smaller. You can also use the x key to switch between the foreground and background color. If you chose a red color for the foreground, your background color will be white, so you can easily color and erase any red by using the x to toggle between the two colors.

Finish coloring the inside of the tshirt.

If your artwork is purely black and white without any grays, you can take advantage of the magic wand to help you make selections. Let's take a look at how you can do that. We'll try coloring the shorts in this manner.

Even though the artwork layer is locked, you can still use it to make selections. We'll use this to help simplify the process.

1. Click on the artwork layer.

2. Click on the magic wand tool.

Click on inside the shorts area. This will make a selection of what's inside the shorts area.

3. Go back to the layers palette and click on the CREATE A NEW LAYER icon.
4. Rename the layer an position it beneath the artwork layer.
5. Rename the layer.
6. Click on a color in the swatches palette

7. Make sure the newly created layer is selected and hit ALT-DELETE (OPTION-DELETE on a Mac).

This will color the pants blue. This little trick won't work on an image with gray levels, because the magic wand won't always select everything in the area. It will also have trouble with areas that are not closed artwork because it will choose too much of the background.

The reason we're creating a layer for each element is so that we can go back and change our minds. Let's say we want to keep our options open as to what color the shorts should be. We can create an adjustment layer that will let us change the color of the shorts whenever we want.

1. Make sure the shorts layer is selected.
2. Click on the Adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the screen.

3. Select the Hue/Saturation option.
4. adjust the sliders to change the colors of the image.

5. Click ok when you're happy with the color of the shirt.

You'll notice that you're changing the colors of both layers. You may just want to change the colors of the shorts, so we'll need to make the adjustment layer affect only the shorts layer.

1. Position your cursor between the newly created adjustment layer and the shorts layer
2. Hold down the ALT key (OPTION key on a Mac).
3. Click the mouse between the two layers.

The color adjustment layer will affect only the layer you're working with. This is a great way to be able to change the color of your image, but it's also non-destructive, which means that if you want to change the color, just double click on the left hand side of the adjustment layer.

Finish coloring the artwork. Here's what I ended up with.

The cool thing about separating the color from the artwork is that once the art is done, we can apply special effects to each layer or to all layers.

1. Turn off the artwork layer by clicking on the eye tool to the left of the layer.

2. click on the pop-up menu on the layers palette.
3. Select MERGE VISIBLE
4. All the color will be combined into a single layer.

You don't really have to combine all the colors into a single layer, you can apply filters to individual layers, it's just quicker to do it this way. I'm going to apply a simple gaussian blur filter to the color layer.

this creates a soft effect around the colors of the image. look at how well this effect work around the eyes of the character, you can choose to apply different effects. I player around with some more coloring and a few effects.

Another thing that you can do with these non-destructive layers is to add highlights and shadows to your artwork.

You can use tools like the brush tool, the dodge, burn and sponge tools and anything else in the palette to add highlights, other colors, etc. You can add a layer for just highlights and shadows. After playing for a while, here's what I ended up with.