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Note: Tutorial created using Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Windows XP.
Photo tinting gives a unique look to your photos, whether you’re framing and hanging them on your wall, or doing a layout with them. It’s a great way of emphasizing a certain part of a photo, too. There are a few ways to do photo tinting, but I’m going to show you a quick way for this digital scrapbooking tutorial.
Open the photo you want to tint. Duplicate it. Never work on the original. Always work on a copy.
Now, drag your photo onto the “New Layer” icon on your Layers Palette. You should now have two layers.
Please note that I’ve named my layers; it makes life a little easier when working on images with lots of layers. For this tutorial, it’s just two layers, but I’ve named them anyway!
OK, now we are going to get rid of the color on the first layer, so make sure that it is the active layer.
Go to Image> Adjustments> Desaturate.
Now, all of the color has been removed from the photo. While this is a quick way to get a black and white photo, it often leaves the image looking flat. If you want just a black and white photo, it is best to play around with the levels and curves to get good tones and add depth to the photo. (That’s a whole other tutorial though!) Feel free, at this point though, to adjust your black and white layer. You should still have two layers – a black and white (top layer) and a color layer.
Now, we’re going to create a Layer Mask. Click on the mask icon on the Layers Palette.
We are just about done. All you need to do now is choose a soft brush and paint the area of photo you want to have in color. Notice that when you click on the Layer Mask, your foreground and background colors change to black and white. Choose black to paint out the top photo. Make sure the Mask is selected before painting, otherwise you’ll just be painting onto the photo.
If you make a mistake, just choose white and that will paint over anything you exposed from the bottom color layer.
Note that the thumbnail of the Layer Mask has changed. As you paint, you will see the Mask change according to what part of the photo you paint.
Don’t forget the digital artist’s mantra of save, save, save! Make sure you save a PSD copy of your work so that you can always go back to it at a later stage. Once you’re happy with how it looks, flatten the layers and save it as a JPG. Now, you’ve got your tinted photo.
Once you’ve done this a couple of times, it’s really quick and easy. Practice makes perfect!
Layout by Diane Rooney
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Tutorial written by Diane Rooney
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