How to Create a Black and White Image With One Additional Color

Here is my second Photoshop tutorial. We are going to take an existing color photo and use the correct method to turn it into a black and white photo, and then add a single color element back into the photograph, in this case her eyes.

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Here is the photograph we are going to start with:

Our first goal is to turn this into a black and white photograph. Now some of you may know about the ‘desaturate’ option. This is the INCORRECT way to go about turning a color photograph into a black and white photograph. If you were just click on the desaturate option you would get an image that looks like this:

I am now going to show you the correct way to turn any photograph into a black and white photograph.

Step 1: Go to the top menu and click on: Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Channel Mixer.

Step 2: In CS4 an Adjustments Tab will appear on the right hand side, in previous versions of Photoshop a new window will appear, but they both have the same editing capabilities. What we want to do here is click on the “Monochrome” checkbox first. Your image will at that point turn black and white, and look similar to the desaturate option I showed you before. But this is the point where we have the ability to control how the black and white photographs look. The way your photograph looks is very flexible at this point. Play around with the different red, green, blue, and constant settings until you find something you like. I found that +18 for the red channel, +89 for the green channel, and +28 for the blue channel, with a -9 value for the Constant setting gave us a fairly good black and white photograph.

Our photograph should now look like this:

If you compare it to the original desaturate option, you can see the vast difference between the two. The one on the right is the correct version, and as you can see it has much more vibrancy, life, and depth to the it. The one on the left feels flat and dull compared to our image.

Now we have created our black and white image. The second half of this tutorial we will give our girl some bright blue eyes.

What we need to do first is create a new layer. You do that by clicking on the small paper icon in the bottom right of your screen in the Layers Palette.

Next we will zoom in on the eye.

The next step in this process involves making a selection around the eye area so that we can add some color to it. We will do this by using what is called the Quick Mask Mode. This is a way to select an area with the selection having ‘soft’ edges, or blurred edges, so that we don’t have a hard line of color when we add color to the eyes. So first you will click on the Quick Edit Mode button on the bottom of the toolbar on the left.

Next we will select our Brush tool.

We need to make sure our brush is small and has a soft edge. So click on the little arrow next to where it says “Brush:” and you’ll get a dropdown where you can edit the details of your brush strokes. For our purposes a brush diameter of 10px and a Hardness of 0% will work best for us.

Next we need to make sure that our brush foreground color, or the color that you are brushing with, is black.

Now go back to the eye, and click in the middle of it. Don’t be alarmed when an evil red shows up. What you are doing, what the Quick Mask Mode is, is you are painting on a layer to tell Photoshop where you want to make a selection.

So now we want to brush across the entire eye. Take note that your brush leaves a faded or soft edge when you brush, so use that faded edge right along the edge of the retina.

Now we do the same to the other eye.

Now we are done choosing the area we want to add color to, so the next step is to switch off the Quick Mask Mode, and go back to Standard Mode. To do this you will click on the same button you did down at the bottom of the toolbar on the left.

You will now see what are called “Marching Ants” around the girl’s eyes, and also around the border of the entire image.

What you are actually doing when you use the black brush to paint on the red color is telling Photoshop what you DONT want to select. So at this point, we have everything BUT the eyes selected. This is much easier than trying to paint over everything but the eyes. Now all we need to do is a simple Select Inverse and we will have selected just the eyes. You do this by going to Select > Inverse.

You should see the marching ants around the border of the image disappear, and only the eyes should have the marching ants around them now.

Now it is time to add color to our selection. To do this you go to Edit > Fill…

A window will appear. Next to the word Use: click on the drop down box and choose “Color.”

When you do this another window will appear. Choose the color you want the eyes to be. In my case I chose the color blue, or #0090ff. Click OK, and click OK again in the Fill window as well.

What you will have now is a girl with very flat solid blue eyes, not very pretty yet.

Now you will still see the marching ants around her eyes, so we need to unselect, or ‘deselect’. You do this by going to Select > Deselect.

Now you will have the flat blue eyed girl without marching ants around her eyes.

Now comes the fun part. We are going to change the new layer we created and added the blue eyes to, to a different “Blending Mode”. Make sure your layer with the blue eyes on it is selected, and then click on the very first dropdown on your Layer’s Palette where it says “Normal.” Go down and click on “Color.”

Presto! You have gorgeous blue eyes. Almost.

Everything from this point on is a matter of opinion, but I will show you how to make this image look even more real and believable. Because of the color we chose, I believe that the eyes are too vibrant at the moment and look really fake, or ‘Photoshopped.’ What we are going to do now is remove some of the opacity (or give it some transparency) to lessen the vibrancy of the blue. So click on your eyes layer, and then click on the box right above it that says Opacity, and give it a percentage of around 70%. Again, the level of vibrancy is up to you.

Now we will zoom in on one of the blue eyes.

As you can see, a little bit of the blue is seeping through the edge of our retina. So what we need to do is choose the eraser tool.

The same way we created a small soft brush is the same way we need to create a small soft eraser for this part. Go to the top and click on the little arrow next to “Brush:” and give it the same settings, 10px Diameter, and 0% hardness, that we gave to our brush earlier.

Gently brush along the edge of the eyeball until there is no more blue bleeding outside of the retina. Do this to both eyes.

You can see the difference between our before and after blue eyes. The one on the right does not have blue seeping outside of the edges of her retina.