[thelist] Colourizing B&W Line Art

[Andy Warwick]

On 12 Mar 2005, at 16:39, Michele Foster ((WizarDev)) wrote:

> I have some gorgeous B&W line art that I want to colorize for use on a 
> site
> I am developing.  I know what colour I want, #E9F3DE, a pale green.

On 12 Mar 2005, at 17:23, Peter Brunone ((EasyListBox.com)) wrote:

> 	In the Photoshop pulldown menus, go to Image->Adjust->Replace
> Color.  You can pick the black and replace it with your color.

On 12 Mar 2005, at 17:33, Alliax wrote:

> - open your B&W line art with photoshop :
> - menu SELECT -> Color Range
> - then select the black colour
> - click OK (you should see the black outline selected)
> - in the tool palette click on the foreground colour and enter your 
> chosen colour
> - then menu EDIT -> FILL

Both those methods will work, but won't give the best result if you 
have soft edges in the image; you'll get all sort of haloes where the 
black isn't selected correctly.

The best way is as follows (Photoshop 6)

1. With the original image on your background layer, Select All and 
copy the black and white image to the clipboard.
2. Create a new layer and fill it with your light green.
3. Go to the Layer menu and Add Layer Mask, Reveal All.
4. Select this new layer in your Channels palette by turning it's 'eye' 
icon on, and turning all the others off.
5. Paste the black and white image into the Layer Mask.
6. Invert All, so it's now a white image on black.
7. In the Channels palette re-select the RGB channels (turn their 
'eyes' on, and the Layer Mask's 'eye' off).
8. Go back to the background layer--where the original image is--and 
fill with your chosen background colour.

This way all the soft edges will be retained, and you can put the image 
onto any colour background (or even use it with a transparent 
background).

In effect, you use an inverted version of the image to 'knock-out' a 
solid layer of the chosen green colour, complete with fuzzy edges and 
semi-transparent areas.

Hope that helps.

-- 
Andy Warwick
Creed New Media. <http://www.creed.co.uk>