Selective colouring ... ...

I figured I'd start adding a few tutorial type posts to this blog, haven't really paid it much attention of late.

So to start I'm going with a bit of 'selective colouring' or colour popping (I think some people call it that) I use mostly open source software, so for this tutorial I'm using The Gnu Image Manipulation Program (or GIMP for short, I know) and I'm using the latest version (2.8) which amongst other improvements now has a single window mode, which is very good.


One of a few pictures I've used this technique on -

My youngest a few years ago now.

Gimp is free for linux based operating systems, and for Windows and Mac systems, although the Windows and Mac versions aren't officially supported by the people behind Gimp, and considering it doesn't cost anything it can do most of what more expensive programs can (like Photoshop for example) and you can make it do much, much more by adding plugins and extra brushes and a variety of other stuff.

This tutorial is a good way of adding a little something extra to a picture, and takes hardly any time, although having a graphics tablet is handy, it makes the colouring easier.

My graphics tablet, bit old but it still does the job -

Right lets begin, firstly I'd suggest making a copy of the image you want to use, this way you will have the original from which you can use again, I always work on copies of my photo's.

So open your image in gimp, for this I'm going to use another picture of my daughter, you should be able to do this in photoshop and other similar software, although some of the steps may be different.

My chosen image open in gimp (credit to my lovely wife, who took this particular picture she takes much better pictures than me) -

Gimp 2.8 (latest version) has a single window mode.

Firstly you want to duplicate the image, you can do this by pressing ctrl+a to make sure the image is selected, then to duplicate it press ctrl+d, if you are using gimp 2.8 you should see another tab open in the top left corner.

Two images now -

In gimp 2.8 you should see this.

Now we need to convert the copy to black and white, make sure the copy is selected then go to image ---> then mode ---> then greyscale (the picture should turn to black and white) then go to image ---> then mode ---> then select rgb

With that done we now need to create a new layer, firstly make sure that the original colour image is selected, you can do this by clicking on the right tab (you should have two, one colour and one black and white) next go to the layers section, which should be on the right of the screen, then click on the picture you can see, then if you right click you should get a box pop up with various options, you need to select new layer, give the layer a name, like b&w then click ok.

 Creating a new layer -

Give the new layer a name, I've used b&w

 And this is what you should now see in the layers window -

A few steps left before colouring in time.

Next make sure the layer you created is selected, it should be highlighted, like it is in the above picture, now select the black and white image from the tabs in the top left, then press ctrl+a to select all, then press ctrl+c to copy, next click on the colour picture from the tabs in the top left and press ctrl+v this should paste the black and white image onto the colour image.

The colour image should be obscured by the black and white image you just pasted, and once that's done you need to click on the anchor button in the layers window, then you can close the black and white image window if you want to.

Now in the layers window right click on the layer you named b&w (or what ever you chose) and select add layer mask, and in the options that open select white (full opacity)

Selecting the layer mask - 

Almost done.

Now make sure black is set as the foreground colour in the toolbox, which should be on the left of the screen, then select the brush tool (hint it looks like a brush ;-) you should select a fairly large brush, basically what you're about to do is paint transparency into the layer mask to reveal the colour picture below.

Start colouring, and this is why it's handy to have a graphics tablet, you can you a mouse, it's just easier with something that resembles a pen.

As you colour you should see the colour start to show on the black and white image, you can zoom in on the image as you colour to make sure you don't go over the area you intend to colour, to zoom in use the + sign on the number pad, or go to the view menu and select zoom in.

After a minute or two here's how mine looks - 

Simple really.

And here's the finished image - 

Pretty in pink.

And that's it, quite simple really, and to be honest you'd be surprised how many of these photo effects aren't actually that complicated, and you can even do it using free software (who says open source software isn't any good) 

I've added a short screencast of the steps taken to make an image like this at the bottom, I only did things quickly, it's probably best to take a little more time than I did for the video, after all you are going to want it to look nice, the video has captions to help you along the way, but before I go, I'm sure you've seen the types of pictures people have been taking with smart phone apps like instagram and others, you can do that in gimp as well, and the best of it there are plugins for gimp that will do it for you in much the same way as the smart phone apps do, have a look at the picture of my daughter below.

 My daughter being a mouse (apparently) - 

I thought kangaroo, but no she says it's definitely a mouse.

Here's the video (you might want to view it in full screen mode) - 

And you can download gimp 2.8 from this site - http://www.gimp.org/ (opens in new window)


Thanks for reading.