Tutorials

Colorize Comics

11/20/2003

You need to use different techniques when colorizing a comic book drawing than when colorizing a black-and-white photograph. On tonight's "Screen Savers" I show you how to do it.

1. When colorizing a black-and-white (grayscale) image, you replace gray values with color. The lights and darks of gray turn into lights and darks of blue, for instance. Here's how you color a grayscale image. Convert your image to RGB by clicking Image, Mode, and RGB.

2. Using the Paintbrush Tool in Color mode, choose a color to match an element in the image.

3. Color the element.

Photoshop will change the hue but preserve luminosity values, or lights and darks.

Color your comics

Colorizing a comic book is a bit more like paint-by-numbers, except you don't have to worry about staying inside the lines.

1. Scan the image of your comic-book drawing.

2. Use the Levels command (Image>Adjustments>Levels) to darken the tones of the image if needed.

3. Duplicate the background to a separate layer.

4. Put your new layer on Multiply mode.

5. Create a new layer between the multiplied layer and original Background layer for each color you want to apply. This is where colorization takes place.

6. In each color layer, select a Paintbrush in whatever color you wish parts of the image to become. Apply paint.

7. Using the original drawing as a guide, apply shadows and highlights. Use the Dodge and Burn tools with different sizes of soft-edge brush tips. Use Dodge for highlights and Burn for shadows.

8. In some cases you may want to apply a filter to add additional texture to the art. In other cases, apply a Layer Style to add dimension to your color. For example, while painting the red blood, I used Bevel and Emboss.