Back when I taught Hand Coloring, I always emphasized how important highlights are. Cleaning up the highlights in an image can make the difference between an OK image and an image that comes to life. Note: I’ve stopped using mouse hovers for the Before / After as they do not work on touch devices such as iPads.

Rose Image After

Final image with adjustments.

 

Rose Image Before

Image before adjustments

Hand-coloring is a lot like using textures. In Hand-coloring, we would rub color over the photograph and then rub it off where we didn’t want it. The same holds true for textures. We cover our image with texture and then we brush off what we don’t want with a Layer Mask. I wanted to keep some of the brush strokes over the glass jar, so I lightly brushed with a large brush tip, and then cleaned up the spectral highlights with a small brush tip.

Detail Before

Detail before adjustments.

Detail After

Detail after adjustments.

Here’s the Layer Mask view. Note how I’ve gone over the highlight areas with a finer brush tip.

Layer Mask

Layer Mask

The Layer Panel And A Few Details

Rather than give a detailed account of the adjustments in this image, I’m going to show you the layer panel and point out the more interesting details. Feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Details of Note:

  • One of my favorite tricks is duplicating a texture layer and setting the Blend Mode to Normal. I can get a concentrated texture effect. I brush away enough of the texture from the important part of the image with a layer mask so that it mostly affects the textured area.
  • I also used a levels adjustment layer to add blue to the highlights. I felt the warm color cast of the texture was dulling the highlights. Notice how I used a layer mask to retain the warmth of the color in the outer areas of the texture.

Layer Panel

Texture Resource

Charmante is available in the l’Artiste Collection

Charmante Texture

Charmante

Overlay Available in Tour Eiffel 1903 Ephemera & Overlays

Leslie Nicole
Leslie Nicole

American Photographer and Designer living in France with my French husband, 2 Weimaraners and Cat Rescues. Camera, Mac, studio, garden.