How to Hand Color Your Photos

Just a reminder that you can still order a hand drawn portrait from my bro in law. I've put a another one of his drawings on the side bar there ---->

I've had a couple people ask me how i color my black and white photos.

First I open my photo in Gimp. I learned how to do it using this tutorial they had on their website. I'd never used Gimp before so it took me awhile to figure it out.

Then sometimes i'll open the picture in photoscape after it's black and white and use the color curves to make it truly black and white and not gray and white.

Here's my short hand list that I use to remember all the steps.

Open GIMP program

Get your picture you want to work on: File, open, folder, select picture, open

Hit: CTRL D to bring up a duplicate image.

On the duplicate, right click on the photo then click on image, mode, grayscale (turns it to B&W)

Then on duplicate, Image mode, RGB

Switch over to color being in front of B&W

CTRL L (open layers dialog box)

Make sure colored image is selected in layers dialog box

Click new layer on layers box

Name B&W, make sure transparency is checked

Switch over to B&W picture (duplicate)

Select all, edit, copy

Go to color photo

Edit, paste (you will see color pic go from color to B&W)

Select floating in layers box

Click anchor to lock down image

Close B&W pic (do not save)

Right click on B&W in layers box

Add layer mask, make sure white full opacity is checked

Click add

Start coloring!
Remember to Flatten Image before saving it.

If you have a picture you want colored but can't figure it out or just don't want to bother learning. Send it to me and i'll help you! Just let me know what you want colored in the photo.
My email is: missylovsjesus at yahoo dot com.