Feature: Adding a Touch of Color to an image is straightforward
Motivation: We use Corel PaintShop Pro to Add a Touch of Color
Black and white images are enhanced by using just a Touch of Color; but also the same is true of Color images. We show how to color images by either by adding a color brushstrokes or by desaturating a color image in Corel's PaintShop Pro and theme apply some finishing touches.
In this first example I take a black and white image of a pole vaulter just clearing the bar (or maybe not) and want to suggest some of the form and motion while blurring out the background.

So my first stroking is with the Corel PaintShopPro's (hereafter PSP)Airbrush tool. I have used the eyedropper tool to pick up the light gray at the top of the image to create an even background at the top of the image. For the AirBrush tool the key settings in the Property Bar are hardness=75%, Density=50%, Opacity=87%, Blend Mode =Normal.

I do the same for the mid image white area - picking up the color with the Eyedropper and brushing out some of the darker figures at both ends. I tried using the lighten bend mode but it created too much contrast with the lower section of fans.

Now the pole vaulting took place in the rain and you can see the droplets especially in the lower darker section of the image. I have reconciled myself to losing this in the process of smoothing out the lower section. I tried airbrushing over in a uniform dark gray but again the effect was too harsh.

Finally I tried the Smudge and Push tools in the lower section - and again I simply did not like at all the resulting smeared look. So again I backtracked. I can't stress the importance of the Undo tool - it allows designers to "take back" trial and errors with almost instant response time. Check in Files | Preferences | Undo - and set the Undo levels to a comfortable size. I have 250 per image and have never run out of Undos while using PaintShop Pro (or any other program for that matter).

So having tried all sorts of smudge and paint overs - I finally revert to what I should have used in the first place - a blur. Specifically I have chosen to use a Gaussian Blur to take the details of the fans out of the picture so that the pole vaulter is the center of attention.

I have decided to do this in a two step process - ask the lower left and apply the Gaussian blue and then do the lower right with the same blur settings.

the reason for two steps is simple - it is easier t mask the two regions separately - specially because we are using a fairly substantial feather of 30 pixels. In fact if you look at the screenshot at the left the mask appears to be covering the athlete substantially on the legs. But the large feather guarantees that the blur effect will drop off greatly and not effect the athlete.

also add on more touch. I add a motion blur to the right foot of the pole vaulter. This slight sense of motion along with the athletes streaming hair provide the sense of motion.

But still the pole vaulter is almost sucked into the grays of the crowd in the background. So with the
I mask of an outline of the pole vaulter and then add the Effects | 3D Effects | Drop Shadow and use a very high Blur value. But curses foiled again - this time its the very light mid-section - the drop shadow is too conspicuous in this section - and fading it out just draws attention to the borders of the shadow.

So color will have to be used to center attention on the athlete. Now if this were PhotoShop CS1 or CS2 - the problem is solved just use the color replacement brush. This brush uses the color and luminosity of the selected paint but respects the and retains existing texture, brightness/contrast values of the painted over region. So to accomplish the same in Corel PaintShop Pro, I have to duplicate the layer. Then paint red over a masked region on the top layer.

I keep the Blend Mode as normal between the layers but reduce the opacity of the top layer to 25%. Note what happens - the solid red fill is blended in with the texture and contrast of the underlying image.

More importantly, the pole vaulter is drawn out of the background and becomes the ceneter of attention. The red color, though muted, still has attention getting power. Now your eyes like go from hands and hair at the top through the red stripes on the chest to the blurrred foot on the bottom.

I tried a simple test. I split a class of two dozen artists into two groups. I then had half the class look at the original image with no color or blurring and the other half to look at the image with a touch of color. Both groups were told to concentrate on the complete image because they would have 20 seconds to do a quick drawing of the image and then 20 more seconds to list as many attribute of the image as possible.

Voila - interesting results. The Touch of Color group almost completely ignored the background in their list of attributes and "saw" more of the details of the athlete in their lists. Only the touch of color group saw/noted the Nike check marks on the uniform and the tiny German flag in the top right shoulder. Finally, more of the touch of color group noticed the streaming hair and DeutschLand on the shirt.

In sum do not underestimate the power of a touch of color to direct attention on your images. In the next, exercise we shall see how much easier it is to leave just a touch of color when desaturating a color image.