PS I Love You: Colored Roses

(photo of Eléonore Bridge used with permission.)

When I’m watching TV or when I see cool movie title credits or see a striking ad in a magazine, or even when I’m walking past a billboard on the street, many times I ask myself, “Can I do that in Photoshop?” Lately I’ve been inspired by Japanese fashion magazines that showcase designers that are new to me, like Ted Baker. When I saw their massive floral fabrics in AnAn Magazine No. 1798, the first thing I thought of was The Graphics Fairy’s awesome collection of antique rose graphics. Then I thought, inspired by Ted Baker’s floral fabric, that I would make a Photoshop exercise in (1) extracting objects from their environment and (2) coloring and tinting images.

Tutorial

In the first part of the tutorial, I’m going to isolate a rose from its background. There are many ways to do this in Photoshop. For example, you can use any of the three lassos to make selections. You can even use layer masks. But today, I’m going to use the Quick Mask technique, which I learned just this week. I resisted Quick Masks for years, but I found out they’re easier to use than I thought they would be. I owe Fuzzimo thanks for pointing me in the right direction! :D

Special Thanks

I want to thank Eléonore Bridge for giving me permission to feature her beautiful fashion shots, taken at La Maison des Champs Elysées as a demo for this tutorial. Thank you, Eléonore! AND, many, many thanks to Karen of The Graphics Fairy for letting me use her beautiful Roses in Vase image!

Alright, guys, let’s get started. Please visit The Graphics Fairy and download the original Victorian image of Roses in Vase.

Selection with Quick Mask (part 1)

1. Open the Graphics Fairy’s Roses in Vase image in Photoshop.
2. Select the Layers Palette. If you don’t see your Layers Palette, you can make it visible by going to Window >> Layers.
3. Go to the Tool Box and double click the Quick Mask button.
4. After you double click the Quick Mask button, you’ll see the Quick Mask Options dialogue box. For the Color Indicates option, click the Selected Areas radio button. Click OK.

Selection with Quick Mask (part 2)

1. Go to the Tool Box and select the Brush Tool. I recommend a round brush with a hard tip. Feel free to choose a brush size that suits you best. But, since we’re going to stroke the outline of the rose with the brush, I recommend a narrow tip, like a 25 pixel brush. You can even use a smaller tip if you prefer to zoom in and be really precise.
2. After you choose a brush size, stroke the outline of the rose. By default, the mask color is red (you can change this color by editing the color value in the Quick Mask Options dialogue box (double click Quick Mask button in the Tool Box).

Selection with Quick Mask (part 3)

1. Once your outline is complete, fill it in.
2. Increase the brush size so that it will be easier and quicker to color the remainder of the rose.

Selection with Quick Mask (part 4)

1. After the rose is “masked”, go back to the Tool Box and click the Quick Mask button. Doing this turns the red mask into a selection. Alternatively, you can also simply press "q" for quit.
2. Look at the rose. Observe that the rose is no longer red and instead, there’s a selection.
3. Copy this selection Edit >> Copy.
4. Create a new document File >> New.
5. Then paste the rose into this document Edit >> Paste.

Coloring Roses (part 1)

1. Add a Black and White adjustment layer (see step 5 above).
2. When the Black and White options dialogue box opens, just click OK.

Coloring Roses (part 2)

1. Add a Solid Color adjustment layer (see step 6 above).
2. Choose any color from the Color Picker and then click OK.

Coloring Roses (part 3)

1. Select the Color Fill layer that you just added in the previous step.
2. Change the blending mode. In the example above, I chose Multiply.

Coloring Roses (part 4)

1. Select the two adjustment layers you just added (Black & White layer and Color Fill layer)
2. Create a Clipping Mask Layer >> Create Clipping Mask.

The End

The flower is ready to use at this point! If you want the flexibility of changing the rose color at a later time, select the rose layer and the 2 adjustment layers and then create a group. Otherwise, you can simply select the same three layers and merge them — it’s up to you. I hope you find these techniques useful!

(Roses from The Graphics Fairy // photo of Eléonore Bridge used with permission.)

Member Perk

I want to thank The Graphics Fairy for giving me permission to include 3 of her roses in my exercise files, which Pugly Pixel members can download. The PSD exercise files contain the 3 roses I isolated and colored in Adobe Photoshop. Since they’re PSD files, you’ll be able to see the adjustment layers I added. Please note that the exercise files do not include The Graphics Fairy’s original Rose in Vase image, nor do they include Eléonore Bridge’s photos.