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Let's say you had a pencil sketch, an ink, even a black & white photo, or anything
with no color to it.. and you wanted to add color to it. How would you do it?
Well a very common and easy method is to simply put your image on it's own layer,
then change it's blending mode to ``Multiply". However this method has limitations.
What I'm about to show you will make your B&W image truly transparent. Which will give
you many more options, including being able to change the blending mode to something
other than Multiply..
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| Step: 1 - Find Something to Color |
Okay well first step is to find something you want to prep. I have chosen an ink
that I'll use for the Cell Coloring tutorial. Afterall,
it's required to prep the ink before we can color it and that's what this tutorial is
about. (:
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| Step: 2 - Duplicate the Background Layer |
This step is pretty easy and straight forward. All we want to do is duplicate the background
layer.
You can do this either by choosing ``Duplicate Layer..." from the Layer menu.
Or you can do it the easy way by simply dragging the background layer to the
New Layer button in the Layer palette, as illustrated in the image to the left.
This will create a new layer on top of the background layer, and Photoshop will name it
Background Copy.
Double click the background copy layer. A dialog will pop up with the layer
properties. Go ahead and rename the layer to ``Ink".
Now that the ink is on it's own layer, it doesn't need to be on the background layer
anymore. So click and drag it to the Trash Can button on the Layer palette. This
will delete the original background layer.
Ensure your current background color is white (default), and pull down the Layer menu,
roll over the New sub menu, and choose Background. This will create a brand new
background layer in the current background color (white).
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| Step: 3 - Channels, The Real Magic |
Well, now it's time to get rid of all the white space on the Ink layer. Start
by making sure the currently highlighted layer is the Ink layer.
Now choose the Channels tab, it's right next to the Layers tab by default.
This image we're working on is in Grayscale color mode, that's what we scanned it
in at. So we only have one channel. If your image is in RGB Color mode, you're going
to see 4 channels: RGB, Red, Green, and Blue. If this is the case, ensure the RGB Channel
is highlighted.
Alright now, click the Load Channel as Selection button. Which is the button pointed to
by the arrow in the image to the left. You could also drag the Black or RGB channel (whichever
color mode you're working in) to this button.
What this step pretty much does is create a selection around all the white in the layer. The
grays and blacks are left alone, just the white is selected.
To get rid of it, hit your DEL key on the keyboard, or choose Clear from the Edit menu.
And ta da! Your ink is now transparent. However, if you were watching, you may have noticed
your black lines grayed a little. This is normal and we'll fix it in the next step.
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| Step: 4 - Preserve Transparency |
Go back to the Layers tab. You should see something a little like what we have on
the left. 2 layers, Ink and Background. Select the Ink layer and highlight it.
Simply check the Preservce Transparency check box. It's pointed to by the arrow
in the image on the left.
Now if you've never used Preservce Transparency before.. it prevents you from painting
over transparent pixels. Only pixels that already have paint in them can be painted when
this option is checked. It's a very powerful and useful, yet simple option.
If you wanna see it work, grab a red paint brush and take a couple quick strokes at the
image. Anything you do can easily be undone by going back a couple of steps in your History.
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| Step: 5 - Making Black Black Again |
Okay now pull down your Edit menu. Choose Fill... A dialog will pop up
similiar to the image on our left.
Fill will fill a layer, selection, etc with a color or pattern in one step. We're
going to use it to ``fill in all the black again" to bring the ink back to it's original
self.
From the Use drop box, choose Black if your current foreground color isn't
already black.
Make sure the other two options are set to 100% Opacity and Normal blending mode.
When all looks good, click OK.
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| Step: 6 - Finished! |
And that's it. Our Ink is now totally transparent as we can see in the image on our
left.
We can easily make a new layer under the Ink layer, and add color to this image. We can
also add color to the Ink itself by using the Preserve Transparency feature and applying
color to the Ink layer.
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| Step: 7 - Try it on a Photo |
So what can we do with a transparent grayscale image? Plenty.
Using the above steps, I made the image just above. After the photo was transparent,
I turned on Preserve Transparency and proceeded to color their outfits a different
color.
You may have seen something like this effect in commercials, advertisements, etc..
well this is how you make em! Kind of neat huh? All sorts of things that can be done with this. So go play and have fun!
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Adobe PhotoShop 7.0
Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8 (affordable alternative to PS)
Corel Painter 8 (more ideal for digtal painting than PS)
Wacom Graphire3 Pen, Mouse & Tablet Set
Wacom Intuos2 6x8 Graphics Tablet
Canon CanoScan LiDE 30 Scanner
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