There are lots of times when you need to colorize a black and white photo. This can be a time consuming task and requires a lot of skill to make it look realistic.

Using Adobe Sensei, AI technology, Photoshop can help with this task.

Sometimes it will get us all the way where we need to get and other times, we need to guide Colorize and do some touch ups.

We will look at the process right now. On a side-note, this workflow also works for images that have a heavy color cast or colored lights, such as a live concert.

Open the black and white image.

If you are starting with a grayscale image, you need to make sure it’s in RGB color mode, so it can receive color. Image>Mode>RGB Color

Choose Filter>Neural Filters

Look for Colorize. If you see a Cloud icon, click the icon to download the filter.

Turn on Colorize by clicking the button in the right of the panel

Using AI, Photoshop turns the image into color.

Its looking pretty good to start with.

You will see a little color at the front of the hat.

Click on the thumbnail, on the brim of the hat, where the  color is.

Click on the color swatch and choose black

I frequently get asked. “How does Photoshop determine the proper colour for something?” Additionally, “What can I do if it’s a different colour than I want”?

Simple—just click on the colour swatch one more.

Pick a blue colour this time.

Now it changes the hat to blue.

Try a different color, like green.

See how easy it is. You might have noticed the background also changed. Let’s address that.

Change the color to something more in the blue range.

You’ll notice that it uses a different colour for the background.

On the other side, place another pin in the upper right corner.

The colour of the newly added pin will match that of the previously chosen pin.

This creates a new Layer. See how the Layer Blend mode is set to color?

The imperfections in the colours may have caught your attention. That can be fixed.

Since the image is in Colour Blend mode, all we have to do is paint the layer with the proper colour; otherwise, nothing will change.

Look at the spaces between the fingers and the neck. Let’s correct it.

To choose the Brush tool, press B.

Click on a patch of skin near the hand to sample the colour you wish to use for the repair while holding down Alt or Option.

Paint over the area you want to fix on the top layer. Simple: just paint in the new shade.

It’s amazing that just a couple of moments ago, this was a black and white photo.