any ideas on adding color

[snownow]

New to photo shop, any tips on making the edges softer, or other color ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

[Meysha]

I'm not sure I understand your question... what exactly do you want to do with the softening?

Same thing goes for the colouring... what do you want to do? There's some people on here who do a cool thing with selectively reducing saturation on certain areas of the photo. It involves using layers and masks so if you're only a noobie to PS it might be a little difficult... but hey.. you've gotta start somewhere. There's a site called good-tutorials or something like that that's got heaps of PS Tutes to get you started.

 

[Digital Matt]

A quick tip for softening is:

Duplicate the layer with the photo on it, run a guassian blur at 6 pixels, and reduce layer opacity to your liking. Usually somewhere from 20-50% works well.

I'm not sure what method you used to selectively color this, but the background looks really washed out.

 

[snownow]

Thank you for the link, it does have some nice tutorials. Matt thanks for the advice, just what I was looking for. The background is actually too green, working on that, Going for a sepia look with a little color added. The quality of this photo is not the greatest, but one my wife seems to like the best. It was not shot in Raw, and has a huge amount of noise in it. Once again, thanks for the tips.

 

[Meysha]

Try a duotone.... if you're going for that sepia look.
Add a Channel Mixer layer (click the monochrome box at the bottom) then change the levels to create the B&W look you want.
Then convert the whole file to Greyscale (Image->Mode->Greyscale) Then convert to duotone (Image->Mode->Duotone).
Keep the first colour as black and then in the second spot select the colour you want from the huge list. Then click on the diagonal line on the right to change the curve of the colour (this'll change where the colour appears and how much).

 

[capturedinfocus]

i would suggest learning about photoshop actions...then downloading some. there are free ones all over the internet. i downloaded a soft focus action the other day.

http://www.nickgallery.com/web_pages/technical.htm

 

[janine3467]

HI there, Very new to photography and everything that goes with it... can you tell me how I add colour to a section of a black and white photo? Just like the yellow flower in your picture?