PS Tutorial 5: Manual Coloring

Tutorial PS Smart Tutorial Series of five: manual coloring

From RGB mode image to grayscale image, in Photoshop we generally use the method of transforming image mode to complete. But this tutorial is about how to convert an RGB image to the most accurate grayscale image without changing the existing pattern of the image. Using the Channel mixer to adjust the layer, you can create an image that is still RGB, but appears grayscale, so you can add additional colors to it with the brush tool.

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1. Observe a single channel of the image

Open the RGB image file you want to convert to grayscale, click on the channel name, and observe the individual channel situation. Find the channel that contains the most details of the image, where the green channel is typical. After checking the channel, click on the RGB integrated channel to ensure that each channel is displayed.

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2. Increase the adjustment layer

At the bottom of the Layers panel, click "Create new fill or adjust layer" to add a new adjustment layer. Select the channel Mixer in the pop-up menu. In the Channel Mixer dialog box, click Monochrome to change the output channel to gray and render the image grayed, but this does not really damage the color information of the background layer image. Move the slider with the most channels of the image detail to +100 (in our case the green channel), the red and blue channels are set to 0 (mix until you are satisfied), click OK.

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3. Create a new drawing layer

Now create a new layer for the drawing. Select Layer > New > layer, named "Color", set opacity to 100%, mode to multiply the bottom, click OK.

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4. Smear the image with the foreground color

Select the airbrush from the tool panel and select a foreground color in the color panel. In the Airbrush tool option, if necessary, reduce the opacity of the brush, which slows down the coloring process and produces a more natural effect. Then start spraying with this color on the screen.

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5. Continue drawing with different colors

Change the foreground color to continue painting on the diagram and add the colors you want to the diagram. A good way to do that is to create a layer for each color so that you can better control it when you erase or convert it, or you can change the opacity or blending mode of each layer or color. If the color is too dim, like this (Figure Image08), you can try changing the blending mode of the layer to soft light, or changing the color blending mode of the spray gun.

(Figure Image08)