Changing the color tone in Photoshop

Photoshop. To someone without training in it, it could be somewhat daunting. I know it was for me. I would look at other people’s completed pictures and wonder, “Why can’t I get it to do that?” Fortunately there are several simple tools to use in this program to generate some rather advanced effects.

One of these effects is changing the color tone in photos. There are several different options when it comes to changing tone. You can have black and white, sepia, or any number of other color masks that you can think of. Also, there are many ways to achieve these effects. I will only be covering a few of them, the ones I use the most.

The first one, and the one I’ve found to be the quickest, is to use the layers box. Open up your picture in Photoshop, and look to the right of your screen. There should be a box titled, “Layers,” and it should have a highlighted thumbnail titled, “Background.”

At the bottom of this box there are several icons to click on. Next to the trashcan icon there is one that looks like a white square. When you place your mouse over it, it should say, “Create New Layer.” Click this icon. Now go to the Foreground Color Picker in your tools box on the other side of the screen, and choose what color you would like to tone the picture. Select the “Paint Bucket” tool and fill the layer. Don’t Panic! We’re going to fix this solid-colored square you now have on your screen. Back in the layers box, you will see a drop down bar that currently says, “Normal.” Click the arrow and instead choose, “Color.” On the opacity slider next to it, you can now adjust the intensity of the color.

A fantastically easy way to make a picture black and white is to use hue/saturation. After you have your picture open, you can go up to the menu and click Image> Adjustments> Hue/Saturation. Slide the saturation bar all the way to the left to create a black and white image. You may have to also adjust the Brightness/Contrast [also under the Adjustments menu] when you desaturate an image.

The last technique that I will present is slightly more complex, but can result in a pleasing old-photo sepia effect. You will start at the menu again, this time clicking Filter> Render> Lighting Effects. A box with a lot of options will pop up on your screen. Click in the color picker box [this will probably be yellow] and choose instead a medium orange-brown color. Click ok. Under “Light Type,” select “Omni.” Slide the Intensity bar up to about 46, depending on how bright your picture was to begin with. Now, on the preview of your picture, you will see a circle with four dots around it. Click and drag on any one of the dots and enlarge the circle to a little bit more than the size of the picture, and then click ok.

As I said, there are many more methods to achieve similar results, so go ahead and explore the other wonderful tools that this program offers.