Photoshop Elements Tutorials – How To Hand Tint A Digital Photo

If you are trying to enhance an average digital photo then adding a hand-tinted look will create an awesome effect to the image making it look like a masterpiece. With just a couple of tints the photo will literally transform into photos that you will want to share with all of your family and friends.

Before you begin working on your photo I recommend you create a copy of it first so your first step is to open the photo in your software program then choose file and save as to give it a new name. Also, to save time, I recommend you save your work to your desktop so you can easily find it when you are finished working on it.

Open up the layers palette and drag the photo background layer to the copy icon, forming a new copy of your photo on a different layer and then hit “Target” select this new layer and press SHIFT+CTRL+U to remove the color from the digital photo. Finally hit CTRL+L to bring up the “Levels” dialog.

I also like to hit “Auto” to see what my image looks like before I begin to play around with it. If you want to darken shadows you can adjust the Black slider more to the right; conversely, to brighten the highlights you can move the White slider to the left; when this is finished you can click OK.

Now select the the eraser tool, using a soft round brush set at round 5-10% opacity and about 30 pixels breadth. While bearing in mind that you are trying for a soft, transparent look you can begin to erase the areas on your photograph where you would like to see a bit more color. If you make a mistake, or erase too much, remember that you can use the Undo, or Ctrl+Z button at anytime to get back what you accidentally erased.

Now increase your brush size to enhance the areas where you would like more color and finally you can either merge all of the layers or simply flatten and then save your beautifully hand-tinted digital photo.