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Tutorial on How to Make Black & White Pictures Have Color

Colorizing black and white photos was very popular in the early days of photography. Before the invention of color film, photographers would hand color pictures for their clients. This was often called "hand tinting." While you can easily take a color picture, many individuals enjoy the look and challenge of taking a black and white picture and adding selective color to it. Photo editing programs like Adobe's Photoshop, GIMP and Paint.NET give today's photographers the tools needed to complete the task.

Instructions

- 1
  Turn your computer on and open the photo editing software you want to use. Click "File" and select "Get photo" from the drop-down menu. While the wording may be slightly different from program to program, the steps will be the same.
- 2
  Click the folder containing your photos and click the black and photo you want to colorize. Click "OK" in the bottom right corner of the window to open the picture you want to work with.
- 3
  Click the "Paint brush" tool located in the left margin of the programs window.
- 4
  Click "Opacity" across the top of the screen and adjust the value to "50." Opacity is the intensity of the color you will be adding. You can use any number based on your preferences.
- 5
  Click the "Color palette" in the bottom left section of the programs window and select the color you want to use.
- 6
  Position your mouse cursor over the part of the picture to which you want to add color. Click and hold the button to paint in this area with this color. When you are done with this color, select a new color and move across your picture, adding color as you see fit.
- 7
  Click "File," select "Save as," give your new picture a name and save the colorized version of your black and white picture.

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