If you have an old family photo in black and white, you'll love this tutorial. I will walk you through how to convert a black and white photo into color. First, let's take a look at both the initial photo and the finished product:




Step 1: Actually, the original photo was a little darker so I had to modify the level parameters. Go to ‘Image > Adjustments > Level’. A histogram menu will open. There are three parameters under the graph. To adjust the light level, I have increased the left value and slightly decreased the right value. The middle value remained unchanged. You can choose your values by adjusting the slider until you are satisfied. Lightening your image may make it a little easier to work with. Also, ensure your file is in CMYK mode.




Step 2: Next choose the selection tool. I like using the polygon lasso but you can use the normal lasso tool if you'd like. First, I'll concentrate on the skin. Select all of the skin including the face, hand, neck and shoulder. This will require patience, attention and perhaps a few attempts!




Step 3: Look at the photo carefully... I have selected her face but excluded her eyes, eyebrows and lips as those colors are different. To exclude any area of the selected face simply hold down the ‘Option’ key while using the Lasso tool. To add other areas like the hands and shoulders hold down the ‘Shift’ key. After all of the skin has been selected, press 'q' on your keyboard. This will unleash the quick masking option which will turn all other areas pink. Touch up areas of the skin that are pink using the eraser. To smoothen the mask add a little gaussian blur effect and then hit ‘q’ again.




Step 4: Next, go to ‘Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curve’ or click on the half black circle icon beneath the layer panel and select 'Curve'. This will create a new layer. In the dialog box, name the adjustment layer as 'Skin' and check the box to use the previous layer as the clipping mask. When you hit ‘OK’ a new graph box will appear. Click the drop down menu beside the text ‘CMYK’ and select every color one by one. Change the shape of the curve so that the graph will look like this:




When you click ‘OK’ you will see the magic! His/her face has changed into color! Of course, you will need to adjust the curves in the previous step according to the skin color you are trying to achieve.




Step 5: Now that we've covered the basic, you can follow the same method to colorize the hair, lips and clothes. For every each set of uniquely-colored items, create a new adjustment layer and modify the color curves accordingly. For her hair and lips, I have used these two settings:




Step 6: Because I want her hair to have have blue hair and brown lipstick, I've raised the blue curve for the hair layer and raised the red curve for the lips with a mix of black. My final photo looks like this:




That concludes this tutorial. Best of luck bringing your black and white photos to life with color!

Did you know that you could add a torn up effect on a photo with Photoshop? In this tutorial I will show you how to do this!

Step 1:

I picked up the photo of Lee Major to tear up. Duplicate the layer and select the blending method as ‘Screen’. The image should look brighter.




Step 2:

Double click on the duplicated layer to open the ‘Layer Style’ window and click on ‘Drop shadow’. Choose the blending mode ‘Multiply’ and lower down the opacity. Now add ‘Inner Shadow’ and ‘Inner Glow’ effects; use multiply blending mode, low opacity and black color. Now click on ‘Bevel and Emboss’ tab and set the depth to 13% and the shadow mode to ‘Lighten’. Follow these screen shots for guidance:













Step 3:

Now find some images of torn paper and cardboard from Google images and place them in your Photoshop document. I have used three images and placed them like so:




Step 4:

The way we lay out the torn paper outlines how the photo will be torn. Click on ‘Layer 2’ in the layer panel while holding down the ‘Control’ key and the shape of the torn paper will be selected. Now click on ‘Layer 1’ or whatever layer contains the photo. The selection is now covering the area of the photo; press ‘Control + X’ on your keyboard to cut the area and paste it on top of all layers.




Step 5:

Follow the same method for the other torn papers and cut the photo according to the shapes.

Step 6:

Now select the layer on top and double click it to open the ‘Layer Style’ window. Add a drop shadow effect and repeat the same effect for other layers that contain parts of the photo. You can also add some Gaussian blur effect to the torn papers in order to lighten the background. The photo seems a little too bright so I also placed a new level adjustment layer on top and darkened the photo. My final image looks like this:




Tear away!

Learn how to create your own futuristic portraits with swirling ribbons of light. This Photoshop tutorial will show you how to create light streaks and other high-tech elements that you can incorporate into your own photos!

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Preview of Final Results

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Download the PSD

Dynamic Portrait with Flashy Light Effects.zip | 3.37 MB
Download from Website

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Dynamic Portrait with Flashy Light Effects Photoshop Tutorial

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Resources

• Blured Lights - sxc.hu
• Star Field - freelacah
• Man with Scarf - Dreamstime

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Step 1

Open a new file in Photoshop.It should be 3200 pixels wide by 2100 pixels high.Use 300 dpi for the depth resolution.

Now we are going to set up a basic background for the image.Create a new layer and select the gradient tool (G). Go to the gradient editor and select a gradient that goes from a pure Black color #000000 to a dark gray #202020.

Click on the lower Left part of the canvas and drag the cursor to the top right side to create the gradient.

To eliminate the gradient stops (the lines that appear when the color gradually changes shades on a gradient) we need to add some noise.Go to the menu Filter>Noise>Add noise and use a radius of 1.45% Distribution set to "Uniform" and check the "Monochromatic" option:

Now drag the Starfield stock image to your canvas and resize it to fit.

Set the layer's blending mode to "Lighten" then go to the Levels menu (Ctrl+L) and apply the next settings to make it a little bit darker so it doesn't seem too bright.

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Step 2

Drag your model or portrait stock image into your document. I'm using an image from Dreamstime because it has nice resolution and goes with the concept of the image. Feel free to use any similar image you like.

Using the pen tool (P) we are going to extract the model form the background of the image. Draw a path very carefully along the edges of the man.Try to be precise and keep as much detail as possible:

Once you have the whole path,right click and transform path into a selection. Use 0 pixels of feather radius:

This is how your image should look like after extraction:

We need to fix the lightning on the model.Go to menu Image>Adjustments>Brightness and Contrast and apply the next settings. (Try experimenting with different values for other results)

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Step 3

Drag the Blured lights stock image into your document and place it behind the model's layer.

Go to menu Image>Adjustments>Brightness and contrast and apply the next settings.(You need to apply this twice with the values show below)

I want to get more red and pink tones. To do that, go to menu Image>Adjustments>Hue and Saturation (or Ctrl+U) and apply the next settings:

Now we are going to apply some more blur to the image to get more defined lines of light.Go to filter Blur>Motion Blur and use a Distance of 710 pixels with 0° angle.

Go to the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) and set the feather value to 10 pixels. Select a portion of the lights and Copy/Paste them into a new layer:

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Step 4

Select the move tool (V). We are going to distort this new layer to get a curvy shape. Go to Edit>Transform>Warp and distort the image to a curvy shape.Try experimenting warping the shape in different forms.

Change the layer Blending mode to "Lighten" and duplicate it twice.Move one of this layers slightly up and the second duplicated layer slightly down from the main lights layer.Change the layer opacity of the upper layer to 60% and the lower to 35%:

Duplicate again the main lights layer and place copies around the image.Use the Eraser (E) tool with a round brush about 300 pixels wide and 0% hardness to erase parts not needed:

In this photo-manipulation tutorial, we will learn how to create an oddly-shaped, surreal-inspired, stone house. We will learn how to blend several stock images together to create a pseudo long exposure image of a surreal house at the edge of the dock. We will learn how to create realistic reflections on water and also, enhance the light and shadows of the stock images to create a seamless image.

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Preview of Final Results

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Download the PSD

How to Create an Oddly-shaped Surreal House PSD.zip | 169.84 MB
Download from Website

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How to Create an Oddly-shaped Surreal House

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Tutorial Resources

• Stock Field - Digital-Amphetamine
• Sky 17 - Sacral Stock
• Floating Dock - archistock
• Waterscape Stock 1 - Colourize-Stock
• Piedra Parada - cdiniro
• Old door - salsoul
• Window - Mehrunnisa-stock

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Step 1: Create a Photoshop Image File

Now, let's start by creating a new image file, go to the Menu bar and click File > New, and then input the following values on their respective fields:

• Width: 3000px
• Height: 3000px
• Resolution: 300pixels/inch
• Color Mode: RGB Color; 8 bit
• Background Contents: Transparent

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Step 2: Create the Background

In this step, we will be creating the sky of our image. To start, open "Stock Field" by digital amphetamine. Next activate the Rectangular Marquee Tool by pressing M on your keyboard.

Once activated, create a selection area around the sky as shown below:

Next, activate the Move tool (V) and drag the selected area by left-clicking on it and dragging it to the canvas.

Position the selected area as shown on the image below:

Now, let's rename this layer to "sky 1". To rename a layer, simply double-click on the words: "layer 1" (you can find that on the layer window) to prompt a text box to appear. Once that appears, you may now rename the layer. See image below:

Next, activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and resize the image as shown on the image below:

Now, activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and resize the image by following the instructions shown below:

The result of that should be like this:

Next, we will add another sky layer to give make the sky more dramatic. To start, open "Sky 17" by sacral stock. Once open, activate the Move tool (V) and drag this to our canvas, make sure to put this layer above the "sky 1" layer; to do that, simply left-click the new layer and drag it above the "sky 1" layer.

Rename this layer to "sky 2".

Position it as shown below:

Next, activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and resize it as shown below:

The result:

Next, we will need to erase some parts of "sky 2" to make it blend with "sky 1", so activate the Eraser tool (E) and input the following:

• Brush size: 2200px
• Hardness: 0%
• Opacity: 100%
• Flow: 100%

Now, erase as shown below:

After that, change "sky 2"'s layer opacity to 80% to make it blend well with "sky 1".

To change the Layer opacity, go to the Layer window and then change 100% to 80%.

Now, let's Merge the sky layers; to Merge them, simply click on both layers and then right click on one of them and then on the contextual menu, click on "Merge Layers".

Now that both of these layers are merged, we will now make them move similar to skies from a long exposure image; to do that, click on the newly merged layer and then go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and then input the following:

• Angle: 0
• Distance: 200pixels

The result should be similar to this:

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Step 3: Create the Dock

In this step, we will add the huge body of water as well as the dock. To start, let's open "floating dock" by archistock. Once open, activate the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) and create a selection area around the dock.

Once you've created the selection area, activate the Move tool (V) and drag it to our canvas. Put this new layer above the merged sky layer. Name this new layer to "dock".

Position the layer as shown on the image below:

Activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and then resize the dock as shown below:

The result: