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     I am relatively new to AP and my initial project involves "converting" B&W images to color.

 

     I imagine I should be able to proceed by masking an area to work on and follow a workflow that "maps" B&W pixel values to a color range.   However I have not been able to identify a tutorial or help post that shows or discusses the workflow / process. and I have to think this has been covered but I'm not searching with the right keywords etc.

 

     I would appreciated being pointed to the tutorial or existing discussion of the process / wokflow.

 

Thanks.

 

 

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If you’re after something close to reality, there is no automatic way to do this.  You could create various psychedelic effects by fiddling with blend modes on various colour layers - masking layers will take you further.  However, and for more control, I think the best solution would be to use the brush tool with varying values of transparency.  Use multiple layers to keep it non-destructive.

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hi OldNav, I agree with Mike, there's no automagical way. in general, you can achieve good results adding pixel layers and changing their blending mode to "colour". then, paint on them with the paintbrush: the painted area should retian textures and tonality from the bw image, but take the hue from the brush strokes. selecting colors accurately and trying different amounts of opacity, you should get what you want. you can also experiment with different blending modes.

my advice is to use a new pixel layer for each area in the image: this way, you can set blending mode and opacity for each area and also get a strong, non-destructive setup of your work: if you decide to change something, you can edit the corresponding layer or even delete it, while keeping the good part of your work intact.

take care,

stefano

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Hi @OldNav :) 

I've actually tried colorizing B&W photo when I first bought AP few months ago and it works great.

My method was using vector (solid) objects with pixel masks applied to them (you'll really appreciate the Refine selection :D ), then the blend mode was set to Soft Light... 

 

... and I got this! Please note this was only a test and a lot of additional work could be done to make the colored image better.

 

colorization.jpg

 

 

I believe I watched this Photoshop tutorial since you only need to see the technique, which you can then use in whatever app :)

 

Also, here is my source .AFPHOTO file which you can study. It's 40 MB big, so I couldn't attach it here to the message.

 

Image credit: jura-photography @Pixabay

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