Tuesday Tip: Subtle Color

Today’s Photoshop tip is how to create subtle color in an image. Of course, there are many ways to do this, but we will explore just one. And this may sound repetitive, but techniques do not work for every image, so just do some experimenting. Here we go:
Step 1: Open your image in Photoshop.
Step 2: Make sure your layers palette is visible. If it isn’t, go to Window>Layers and the palette should appear on your desktop. With your layers palette visible, go to the bottom of the palette and click on the layers adjustment icon (half-black, half-white circle) and choose Channel Mixer.

Step 3: Check the Monochrome box and the bottom left of the Channel Mixer dialog box. Your image should now be grey scale. Notice there are three channels (red, green, and blue) that make up your image. You are going to enter values in the three boxes for red, green, and blue, that add up to around 100. You will have to play with the sliders to get the greyscale image that is most pleasing visually. When you are done, click OK.

Step 4: Go to the bottom of the palette and click on the layers adjustment icon (half-black, half-white circle) and choose Hue/Saturation. This will open the Hue/Saturation dialog box.
Step 5: Check the colorize box and enter 40 for for the Hue and 20 for the Saturation. These are the values I chose for my image. You will most likely have to choose what works best for your image. Click OK when you are satisfied

Step 6: Now you are going to drop the opacity of both the Channel Mixer and Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers to bring some of the color back in. The opacity slider is near the top right of the layers palette. I dropped the Hue/Saturation layer to 50% and the Channel Mixer to 30%. You will have to play with the opacity to suit  your image.

As usual here is a before and after set: This is Bree and my Dad. Bree loves her Papa!!