From Black/White to Color

Before	After

1. Start by opening the image you want to add color to and dublicate the image so you are working on a seperate canvas.

2. On the new canvas double click on the background layer (layer 0). Now dublicate layer 0 and set the blending mode to Overlay. Select layer 0 and go to Images > Adjustments > Hue/ Saturation (Ctrl+U) and check for colorize. Now move the handles until you get the colour you want. I've used 34, 34, 0 in this example. I also added some blure, Filter > Blur > Gussian blur and set the radius to 5 pixels, to layer 1 to make it a bit smoother.

Not blured	Blured

3. Now it's time to add some colors to the lip.
Add a new layer (layer 2) and select a deep red color, for example #660000. Enlarge the image to about 300%. On the new layer paint the lips with a small brush. Don't mind if you paint a bit outside the lips because we can correct this later. Change the blending mode to Overlay.

Normal	Overlay

4. Now do the same with the eyes and the dress. To smoothen the colour over the eyes I blured the colour with the same settings as above (2) and I aslo used the Eraser Tool on the dress to get rid of the green colour outside the dress.

Normal	Overlay

This is an example of the same image painted for an email contest