Colorizing A Photo With Multiple Colors In Photoshop

Colorizing A Photo With Multiple Colors In Photoshop

Learn Photoshop with Photoshop Effects at Photoshop Essentials.com

Step 11: Drag A Selection Around The Second Section

Use Photoshop's Rectangular Marquee Tool to drag a selection around the second section. Again, since we enabled the Snap To Guides option back in Step 4, you'll find that your selection snaps to the guides once you're close enough to them. When you're done, your second section should have a selection around it:

Selecting the second section to colorize in Photoshop. Image © 2008 Photoshop Essentials.com.
Photoshop Effects: Drag a selection around the second section.

Step 12: Add A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

With the second section selected, click on the New Adjustment Layer icon once again at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, just as we did before:

Selecting a Hue Saturation adjustment layer in Photoshop. Image © 2008 Photoshop Essentials.com.
Photoshop Effects: Click on the New Adjustment Layer icon and choose Hue/Saturation.

If we look in the Layers palette, we can see that we now have a second Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, and because we had a selection active when we added the adjustment layer, the area inside the selection appears white in the layer mask, which means that only our selected area will be affected by this second adjustment layer. Everything else is black, which means the rest of the photo will not be affected:

The layer mask thumbnail in Photoshop. Image © 2008 Photoshop Essentials.com.
Photoshop Effects: Our second section in the photo appears white in the layer mask preview thumbnail.

Step 13: Click The Colorize Option And Choose A Second Color With The Hue Slider

Let's choose a color for our second section. First, select the Colorize option in the bottom right corner of the Hue/Saturation dialog box, then drag the Hue slider either left or right while keeping an eye on your image to select a color. Again, the color you choose is completely up to you. I want my colors to be fairly similar to each other, so I'm going to drag my Hue slider a little to the right until the value in the Hue input box reads 20. This gives me a reddish-orange color:

Dragging the Hue slider in the Hue/Saturation dialog box in Photoshop. Image © 2008 Photoshop Essentials.com.
Photoshop Effects: Select the Colorize option, then drag the Hue slider to select a second color.

Click OK once you've chosen a color to exit out of the dialog box. The second section of the photo is now colorized:

The second section of the photo is now colorized in Photoshop. Image © 2008 Photoshop Essentials.com.
Photoshop Effects: The second section of the photo is now colorized.

Step 14: Change The Blend Mode Of The Adjustment Layer To "Color"

Once again, let's make sure that we're affecting only the color in the image by changing the blend mode of our second Hue/Saturation adjustment layer from "Normal" to Color:

Changing the layer blend mode to Color. Image © 2008 Photoshop Essentials.com.
Photoshop Effects: Change the blend mode of the adjustment layer to Color.

Step 15: Repeat Steps 11-14 For The Remaining Two Sections

We now have two of our sections colorized. To colorize the remaining two sections, simply repeat Steps 11-14 for each section. First, drag a selection around the section using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, then click on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and select Hue/Saturation from the list. When the Hue/Saturation dialog box appears, select the Colorize option in the bottom right corner, then drag the Hue slider either left or right to select a color for the section. Click OK when you're done to exit out of the dialog box. Finally, change the blend mode of the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to Color.

When you're done, you should have four Hue/Saturation adjustment layers in your Layers palette, one for each of the four sections:

The Layers palette in Photoshop. Image © 2008 Photoshop Essentials.com.
Photoshop Effects: Each of the four sections now has its own Hue/Saturation adjustment layer in the Layers palette.

Here's my image after colorizing all four sections. As I mentioned a moment ago, I want all four of my colors to be fairly similar to each other. Your colors may be completely different from each other, it's up to you. If you want to use the same colors I've used, I set my Hue value to 40 for the third section and 60 for the fourth section:

All four sections of the image are now colorized in Photoshop. Image © 2008 Photoshop Essentials.com.
Photoshop Effects: All four sections of the photo are now colorized.

If you find, as I do, that the colors in your image are looking a little dull, don't worry. We'll see how to fix that at the end of the tutorial.

Step 16: Clear The Guides

Now that we've colorized all four sections of our photo, we no longer need the guides, so let's get rid of them. Go up to the View menu at the top of the screen and choose Clear Guides:

Clearing the guides from the document. Image © 2008 Photoshop Essentials.com.
Photoshop Effects: Go to View > Clear Guides to remove the guides from the document.

The guides have now disappeared, giving us a better view of our image:

The guides have been cleared from the photo. Image © 2008 Photoshop Essentials.com.
Photoshop Effects: The guides have been cleared from the image.

Let's add a stroke around each of the four sections to make them more distinguishable from each other. We'll do that next, and then we'll see how to quickly change all four colors at once!

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