Colorize selection with Hue/Saturation

[wijmenga]

Hello,

My name is Gerard Wijmenga and I completed the Photoshop course with you with positive results.
I am now working on a second colorize job and am running into an issue. I hope I can be helped.
The first job went well. The image mode was set to RGB 8bit colors. Selection of the face made and then colored with Hue/Saturation adjustment. Everything went like clockwork.

For the second job the same mode RGB and 16bit colors. When coloring the selected face with adjustment Hue/Saturation, I can only adjust the brightness and nothing else.
Coloring is possible with Color Balance.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance for the comment

Gerard Wijmenga

 

[IamSam]

My name is Gerard Wijmenga and I completed the Photoshop course with you with positive results.

Hello and welcome to PSG! What do you mean by you have completed "the Photoshop course" with us?

For the second job the same mode RGB and 16bit colors. When coloring the selected face with adjustment Hue/Saturation, I can only adjust the brightness and nothing else.
Coloring is possible with Color Balance.

Is there anyway you can post images or the actual PSD file for your second project? Or maybe provide us with more information? Did the selected face already have color before you tried colorizing it with a H&S layer? What blending option are you using?

 

[wijmenga]

Hello Sam,
Thank you for your post.

Sorry, I followed a Dutch Photoshop course with positive result.
The attached file is a to JPG converted fragment of the original .TIFF file. It is a scanned black and white picture in grayscale and 16 bits color depth. Blending options are Normal.
The selecting of the face is saved as Gerrits face.
Only the Lightness is adjustable, Hue and Saturation are not.

Gerard Wijmenga

 

[IamSam]

From what I can tell, you need to tick the colorize option in the H&S properties.

Click to enlarge.

 

[Babine]

Sam has nailed it using the one filter.
In another direction, try the Neural Filter/Colourize in PS as a base and now play with the Hue/Sat, Selective Colour, etc to get the colouring that you like.

 

[wijmenga]

Hello Sam and Babine,
Thank you for your advices. I already found the colorize tick and neural colorize filter. But in my first colorized picture I didn't use the colorize tick. At least I don't remember it.
I attached the PSD file so please look in to it.

 

[IamSam]

Ok...it took me a minute to figure this one out.

The original Wim Adrienne image you had in your PSD file contained some color information. Therefore the H&S layer was able to make adjustments.


However when I made a copy of the original image layer and then desaturated it (made it completely black and white), the H&S layers no longer affected the image because there was no color information to change!



In this file, the original image is in Black and White and therefore has no color information for the H&S layer to change!


You will have to use the colorize option to add color to this black and white image!!

 

[wijmenga]

Hi Sam,

Now I fully understand the situation and why I was very confused why it did not work the way I wanted! I will finish my colorizing project.
Thanks for the accurate explanation and your time.

Have a good weekend.

 

[IamSam]

You're very welcome! Glad to help!

 

[wijmenga]

By the way….do you have some practical tips for me? Colorizing is a professional business

 

[IamSam]

do you have some practical tips for me? Colorizing is a professional business

Yes I do.

You are on the right track and I suggest that you desaturate any supposed Black & White image. This will be the better starting point. You can add a Curves Adjustment layer to control contrast if needed. But desaturation is not necessary if you are using the "Colorize" option on a H&S Adj layer

I suggest that you only ever use the "colorize" option when using H&S Adj layers. The reason is because you have much greater control over the actual color.

Let me show you an example. (Note: I know the greens are different, just making a quick demo and not trying to match colors!)

This is a non desaturated image that does contain some color information although it appears to be Black & White. Like your Wim Adrianne image was.
Without the colorize option, note where the Hue Slider is located on the color spectrum. Pink? (Opposite color on color wheel)


This is the same image with the colorize option. (Note: It doesn't. matter whether or not the image has been desaturated but this example was desaturated.)
Note where the Hue slider is on the color spectrum. Green! More precise control over the actual color.


While I haven't used them, I like @Babine's suggestion of the neural filters. I'll be looking into that myself.

You can also employ a Solid Color Fill adjustment layer if you are colorizing drawings such as cartoons or anime. Especially if you have to use exact colors! You can just add the color hex code to the color picker.