How to Convert a Black & White Photo to Color in PhotoShop Elements

How to Convert a Black & White Photo to Color in PhotoShop Elements thumbnail
Colorize photos using Photoshop Elements.

In the age of digital photography, you might expect that black and white photos would be a thing of the past. But many photos are still taken in that format, and many important archived black-and-white photos exist as well. At time, you might wish to transform a black and white photo into a color one. You might have expected that you would need an expensive graphics program like Photoshop to do this conversion. However, if you have Photoshop Elements, Adobe's consumer-level graphics program, you can quickly colorize your photo.

Instructions

    • 1

      Load the image that you want to work with onto the computer, either by scanning it in or by transferring it from a digital source like a camera or SD card.

    • 2

      Open Photoshop Elements. Select file from the menu and click "Open." In the dialog that pops up, browse to the image that you loaded and open it.

    • 3

      Select "Image" from the menu, then "Mode" and click "RGB Color." This converts the black and white format to color, even though it still looks the same.

    • 4

      Go to the toolbar and select the "Quick Selection" tool. Use it to select an area you want to add color to.

    • 5

      Select "Layer" then "Adjustment Layer" and click "Hue/Saturation." In the dialog that pops up, click on "Colorize." Then use the "Hue" and "Saturation" sliders to get the color in the preview to what you want. Click "OK."

    • 6

      Repeat Steps 3 and 4 to add color to all the other parts of the photo. Select "File" and click "Save As." Name your file and save it as a high resolution JPEG.

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References

  • Photo Credit black and white farm image by andreaschneider from Fotolia.com

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