Hi all! This is the extended version to my basic editing tutorial for Adobe Photoshop CS5 which covers a lot of material you need to know and what I always use, so I’m guessing you all have already read it. In this tutorial, we’ll be covering more of what some effects does visually and what are some alternative methods of reproducing that same effect.

For this tutorial, I will be using this resized picture of Mashiro Shiina from Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo. For those who don’t know how to resize images, go to the Image tab on the top and click on Image Size (Alt+Ctrl+I) as shown in HERE. Input the size of which you want your image to become and it should automatically scale it properly so long as you have Constrain Proportions checked.

Part 1: Color Effects

• Brightness/Contrast
  
  From looking at our screencap, we should be able to tell that most of the colors are warm. This is because pink is a warm color which is a slight variant off red. Because of this, we’ll be maintaining the same warm setting. What I always do as my first step is to add some contrast which will intensify the colors. We won’t be using any brightness here since the image itself is already very bright.
  
  EXAMPLE OF HAVING +50 CONTRAST
  
  What you should have noticed is that her eyelashes became darkened, the setting on her right became lightened, and the color of the shadow on her hair became more vibrant.
  
  
• Hue/Saturation
  
  Next, you might want to make the colors even stronger since they’re rather weak at the moment. By simply using a Hue/Saturation layer’s Master setting, you will be able to get this:
  
  EXAMPLE OF HAVING +20 SATURATION IN MASTER SETTING
  
  Looking closely, you should notice that this adjustment layer helped whittle out the pixelated parts of her eyelashes. It also helped intensify the colors of the whole image throughout.
  
  
• Color Balance
  
  Now, you might feel like her shadows and eyelashes are a little bit too red. To tone things down, we’re going to have to balance it. Create a new Color Balance adjustment layer and put in -30 on the Cyan-to-Red Midtone scale.
  
  EXAMPLE OF HAVING -30 ON CYAN-TO-RED MIDTONE SCALE
  
  This will reduce the overall amount of red of the picture.
  
  
• Curve
  
  What I like to do is to separate the light and dark colors. We can do that with a Curve. Using the curve will give you a map and a diagonal line like THIS. By dragging the line a bit down towards the bottom right corner, the outcome should become something similar to this:
  
  EXAMPLE OF HAVING CURVE
  
  The curve made the everything darker. To remedy this, we’re going to have to adjust the Curve using layer style and opacity. Change it to 50% opacity and the setting from Normal to Overlay.
  
  EXAMPLE OF HAVING 50% OVERLAY CURVE
  
  
• Hue/Saturation
  
  We’re going to create another Hue/Saturation layer. For this, we also won’t be using Hue again as I usually stick warm colors with warm colors. The color of the red is a little bit too strong again, but since I don’t want it to balance out to become black, we won’t be using a Color Balance. We’ll simply be reducing the overall saturation of the image this time.
  
  EXAMPLE OF HAVING -10 SATURATION IN MASTER SETTING
  
  
• Fill: Solid Color
  
  The image seems like it’s almost complete, but there are still a couple more steps. One of the most common thing in editing is screening as it help make your edits look cleaner. Create a new Solid Fill Layer and use #3b2cab as the color. Set it to 30% Screen and it should turn out to be like this:
  
  EXAMPLE OF HAVING 30% #3b2cab SOLID FILL SCREEN
  
  
• Linen Texture
  
  Finally, we’re going to apply our texture. We’ll be using this linen texture where you can find it HERE. Copy and paste it above the edit of your PSD then set it to Screen. If you feel like the texture is too weak, sharpen it up as many times as you want. Or if you feel like the texture is too strong, change its opacity.
  
  The final result of the edit should come out to be like this:

***For coloring, there are three methods of which you can increase, decrease, or change a specific color. All of these methods will produce similar results. You should be able to manipulate any color by using:

1. Selective Color,
2. Hue/Saturation, or
3. Color Balance

They each give you scales and sliders of which you can manipulate the colors separately.

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Part 2: Monochrome Effects

Achieving the monochrome effect is really simple. You have three methods at your disposal (there may be more that I don’t know of):

1. -PREFERRED METHOD- Use a Black & White adjustment layer and click on the Auto button shown HERE. This will automatically balance out the monochromatic colors evenly.
   
   
2. Use a Vibrance adjustment layer. Move the Saturation slider all the way to the left to remove all colors. If you want your monochromatic colors to stand out more, move the Vibrance slider towards the right.
   
   
3. Use a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Move the Master setting Saturation slider all the way to the left and you will achieve the same results as the Vibrance adjustment layer.

Now you might want to add some of the original color into your GIF or edit which is now monochrome. How would you do that? To do that, take out your eraser and erase certain parts of your adjustment layer. ***For GIFs, this is very time consuming process as you have to duplicate the same amount of monochrome adjustment layers as your frames then erase them each individually.

This is my example of a colored-in monochrome edit:

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I hope you guys liked this coloring tutorial. I probably shouldn’t have used GIFs for coloring comparisons, but I felt as though it would be easier for your guys to notice the differences.  If there is anything else you guys would like to me add or go over, send me a message and I’ll see what I can do to help you out. (⌒▽⌒)