Digital Hand Tinted Photos

with Paint Shop Pro 7

To follow this tutorial, you will need:

Paint Shop Pro 7 Jasc.com
a black and white photo
scanner (or a scanned copy of the photo already on your hard drive)
graphic pad and pen mouse (preferred - but regular mouse will work)

Fig. a

When you scan or open a photo into Paint Shop Pro, the image will be on the "Background" layer. To edit a black and white photo to appear like an old fashioned hand tinted photo you will need to create at least one layer above this background layer. Then you will need to change the "mode" of the image from grayscale to full color: "Color > Increase Color Depth > 16 Million Colors".

To create a new layer, click the paper icon (fig. a, #1) in the Layer Palette. This will bring up the Layer Properies dialog box (fig. b).

Fig. b

In the Layer Properties dialog box you can adjust the transparency of the layer by typing in a percentage or by clicking the arrow and sliding the percentage down to where you want (fig. b, #1) in the box next to Opacity. You can also give the layer a name to help distinguish between layers, especially helpful if you have more than one layer over the background. For our purposes here all the other settings you see in this dialog box can remain at default.

Transparency may also be adjusted after closing the Layer Properties dialog box by using the cursor to slide the indicator in the Layer Palette. (fig. a, #2)

Fig. c

The tool I used for my example is the airbrush. At left are the settings I used for this tool in the Tool Options palette. (Fig. c)

Again, Opacity is where you adjust the transparency of the tool. (Fig. c, #1) Hardness adjusts how much blur the edges of your airbrush "spay" has. I put it at 0 to make it as soft edged as possible (Fig. c, #2).

Do not check Build up brush (Fig. c, #3) so that you can paint an even coat of color over the photo. If you enable this feature, the color builds up (becoming more opaque) when you pass over the same place again causing streaking or blotchiness. Just remember that even without Build up brush enabled, if you release the mouse button (or lift up your pen mouse) it starts a new "session" which can also cause streaks or blotches. Keep the mouse button depressed as you paint until the whole section you are working on is filled in (or keep the pen mouse pressed to the pad).

Fig. d

In this tutorial we will be dealing with the Foreground Color Swatch only. At left is what the Color Palette looks like. the Foreground Color Swatch is the top swatch which is shown as black in Fig. d.

When you click on the Foreground Color Swatch you will pull up the Color dialog box (Fig e).

Fig. e

I used the Color Wheel to choose colors for tinting. Fig e, #1 is where you select the Hue (color). Fig. e, #2 is where you select the Saturation and Lightness of the color (intensity and tint or shade).

Below are two important color settings for fleshtone and hair. The flesh tone color is the same for both black and white people, but the shade would be much darker for dark skin colors.

Fleshtone

Hair Color

Helpful Tips:

If you are painting along and do an "oops", don't forget PSP's powerful Undo tool "File > Undo". You can back up as many steps as you need to fix your mistake.
Work large and reduce size later. If you need to, use the "View > Zoom in by 1" until the area you want to work on is large enough to see well. This also makes it easier to paint with a regular mouse.
Save your "working file" in the native .psp file format. This will preserve all your layers and allow you to reopen the file to make changes later without having to start from scratch.
To produce a photo for the web, use the "File > Export > ... Optimizer". There are optimizers for GIF, JPEG and PNG file formats. This can be used to export a copy of whatever you are working on even before you actually save the PSP file. Use JPEG format for photos.