How to Use Colorization in Adobe Photoshop

Brighten up a dull picture using the selective color option in Adobe Photoshop to add colorization to your images. You can use colorization to make small or dramatic changes to an image in regard to color and brightness. Colorization can be used in Adobe Photoshop to change the colors in an image or object in a few quick steps.

Things You'll Need

• Adobe Photoshop

Instructions

1. Open Adobe Photoshop. Open an existing image you can work with while learning how to change the colorization of an image.

2. Select the "Image" menu, the "Adjustments" submenu and then "Selective Color..." to bring up the "Selective Color" dialog box.

3. Choose a color from the "Colors" drop-down menu. The color you select here will be the color that will be changed in your image.

4. Use the "Cyan," "Magenta," "Yellow" and "Black" text boxes or sliders to increase or decrease the percentage of the colors found in your selected color. Moving the slider to the right will increase the percentages of the colors, and moving the slider to the left will decrease them.

5. Select the "Relative" method to change the existing amount of colors by the percentage of the total amount or select the "Absolute" method to adjust the colors in absolute values.

6. Click "OK" in your "Selective Color" dialog box to save the changes you made to the colorization of your image.

Tips & Warnings

• As you adjust your color sliders, the changes will only effect the color you have chosen at the top of the dialog box.

• Use the black color selection to remove the color out of any unneeded shadows in your image.

• Check the "Preview" checkbox if it is not already selected in order to preview your work as you are working in the "Selective Color" dialog box.