Tutorial: AKVIS Coloriage

Colorization Tips

• When selecting a color take into account that the final result depends on the brightness of the grey shade in the original black and white photo. If you are not satisfied with the result you can make the final color lighter or darker. For this purpose you should change the brightness range of the selected color. Take into account that the brightness range compression (especially if it is strong) will inevitably result in deterioration of the detail and deepness of an image.

   

• Colorization will look natural if you select less saturated colors for your black and white photo. These colors appear in the lower part of the Colors palette.

   

• If you want to have a smooth color transition (i.e., when assigning several colors for the sky or for verdure), you should draw strokes far from each other; if you want to have a sharp color transition (i.e. when assigning colors for eyes, lips, etc.) you should draw strokes close to each other so that the colors won't flow;

   

• To remove strokes use the Eraser tool. If you want to remove an entire stroke, press the Alt key (Option in Macintosh) and left-click on this stroke. If you want to remove all strokes, press the keys Alt+Ctrl (Option+Command in Macintosh) and click on the picture. The shortcut for the Eraser is the E key. You can change the brush size of the Eraser tool using the fall-out scale that appears when you press the Eraser tool button.

   

• To change the color of a drawn stroke, you should select a new color, activate the Tube tool and left-click the stroke. If you want to recolor several strokes having one color, you can activate the Magic Tube and click on one of such strokes - all the strokes having this color will be recolored;

   

• To regulate the brush size for the Pencil, Keep-color Pencil and Eraser tools use the drop-out scale that appears when you press the button of the corresponding tool. Use hot keys: to reduce the brush size press the key [, to increase the brush size press the key ].

   

• To draw a straight line, activate the Pencil tool, press the Shift key and left-click on the start point of the line and on the finish point. In this way you can draw a polygonal outline.

   

• To be on the safe side we recommend you to always save the strokes you draw into a separate file. It is helpful if you have to interrupt your work before you set colors for every object or if you want to edit the colorized photo in the future (change the color scheme, edit strokes). To save the strokes you should press the button , to load strokes press the button . See an example.

   

• Use hot keys for quick access to the tools: Pencil - the B key, Eraser - the E key, Eyedropper - the I-key, Tube - the G key.

   

• To switch between the tabs Before and After use the Tab-key.

   

• To change the image scale use the hot keys: + and CTRL++ (Command++ in Macintosh) to increase the scale, - and CTRL+- (Command+- in Macintosh) to reduce the scale.

   

• If you want to cancel the last action, press the key combination Ctrl+Z (Command+Z in Macintosh). You can cancel the last operations with the button Undo and restore the changes with the button Redo.