Colouring with
Hue/Saturation/Lightness

PSP X and X2

You will find links to filters/programs used in this tutorial Here
the link will open in a new window

Filters and programs used in this tutorial :-
Paint Shop Pro

some images have been made smaller to shorten file size

This tutorial was originally written for PSP7 and was mainly for colouring
sinedots images, although other images could be changed colour in the same way.
I have rewritten it using later versions of PSP, this time I've used plain
coloured rectangles for most of my examples, as it is easy to see the colour
changes with solid blocks of colour.

Step 1.
Open a new image 400 x 400
Create 6 rectangles next to each other, in the following colours
(you can either use the preset shapes tool, or select rectangles and
flood fill, it doesn't matter if the are not the same size).
Red #FF0000
Yellow #FFFF00
Green #00FF00
Cyan #00FFFF
Blue #0000FF
Magenta #FF00FF

Most of the time I have just viewed the changes in the preview window, during
the tutorial, without actually applying them to the image, but if you want to
apply the colour changes to the image as you go through any of the steps, make
a duplicate of your image (Ctrl+D) and minimise it, then you can open up the
duplicate, and go on to the next step using that.

Step 2.
Go to Adjust...Hue/Saturation/Lightness...
Before you begin, click on the Reset button, if you have previously
used Hue/Saturation/Lightness the last used setting may still be active,
resetting will put the settings to the default values (if at any time
you want to return to the default settings click this button).

In the centre is the colour wheel.
The outer ring is static, the inner ring turns as the slider is moved. In the
default position the position of the colours are the same in both wheels.

Just above the wheel is the Hue slider, which we can use to change the colours
in our image. As it is moved the position of the colours around the inner wheel
moves and the colours of the image will change according to the position.
This should make more sense once we start to play

Step 3.
The box next to the Hue slider gives the number of degrees around
the wheel of any movement we make. Negative figures for anti-clockwise
(counter-clockwise) and positive figures for clockwise

The two windows at the top show the current colour of your image (left)
and a preview (right) of the changes you are making. You can use the zoom
buttons if you can't see the whole of your image in the preview window.

Leave the colourize box unticked.

Step 4.
At the moment the Edit drop down box is in Master Edit Mode.
In this mode moving the hue slider in either direction, moves all of
the colours in our image around the colour wheel by the same amount.

Move the slider in both directions and watch how the colours change.
Move it all the way to the right (Hue 180) and see what happens.

The wheel rotates 180 degrees (half way round) and all the
colours become their opposite, eg blue becomes yellow.
If you look at the inner and outer rings on the colour wheel
and your image in the preview window, you will see that the
original colours of your image on the outer ring line up
with the new colours of your image on the inner ring.

The same thing happens if you move the slider all the way to
the left, because although it moves in the opposite direction,
it still finishes in the same place (halfway round).

Step 5.
If you don't want to change all the colours by the
same amount, you can change individual colour ranges.

Click the Reset button to return to the default position.
Click on the 'edit' dropdown box (or its arrow) and choose
Reds. Although we are just using 'Reds' here, you can
change all the other colour ranges in the same way.

The ring between the inner and outer rings becomes a control
ring and you can use it to contol the colours you can adjust.
At the moment it only covers colours that come under the 'red' range.
Anything outside that range will not be changed when the slider is moved.

In the middle of the control ring there is a white circle which you can use
to drag the control ring and move the adjustment area to other colour ranges.
Either side of the white circle there is a bar, these are the inner bars. Changes
will affect colour in the area between the inner bars of the control ring the most
strongly (the colour change will be to a colour the farthest away around the colour
wheel). Changes will be less for the colours at the edges (the colour change will
be to a colour closer in distance around the colour wheel).

Try moving the Hue slider all the way to the right again (180).
You will see that the red part of your image has changed to cyan.
Other colours don't changed because they're not in the adjustment area.

You can expand or contract the width of the range that your changes will
cover by dragging the ends of the colour range further out or inwards.

Leave the Hue slider at 180 and drag the left outer edge of
the adjustment area so that it includes yellow.

Now as well as the red changing to cyan, the yellow has changed to light green.
If you look at the colour wheel, you can see that red (which was in the centre
of the adjustment area), has travelled much farther around the colour wheel
than yellow (which is at the edge of the adjustment area).
Click the reset botton

Step 6.
There is only one colour in our image that comes within the range covered by
'reds', but any colour (eg orange) that comes within the range would be affected.
Click cancel for now. Let's add some orange to the image.

Change your palette colours to orange (#FFA500) and create a rectangle
on your image. I put it across the centre, but you can put it anywhere
(if it's on a seperate layer merge visible).

Go back to Hue/Saturation/Lightness...
Change the edit mode to 'reds' and move the slider all the way to the
right again and you will see that the orange as well as the red changes.

Step 7.
To change the red without changing the orange, drag left end of the
adjustment area, so that the orange section of the wheel is not included,
now the red changes, but the orange doesn't.

It works the other way too. Drag the left pointer back to it's original
postion so that it includes the orange, then drag the right side
inwards to include only the orange within the colour range.
Orange will be the only colour affected by moving the Hue slider.

Click Cancel

Step 8.
You can also select a part of the image, then using Hue/Saturation/Lightness
will affect just the selection. Use the selection tool, to select part of
your image, I have selected a rectangle

Go to Adjust... Hue/Saturation/Lightness...
I used the 'master' edit mode and moved the
Hue slider to minus 84. Here is the result.

Step 9.
The lightness slider does exactly what it sounds like. Move the lightness
slider up (or put positive numbers in the box) to make the image lighter,
the higher the number the lighter the image becomes).

Move it down (negative numbers) to make the image darker.

Lowering the saturation level makes the image more grey.

Click the Reset button
You can change a multi coloured image to monochrome.
Click the Reset Button. Tick the colourize box, your image will turn grey.
Move the saturation and the lightness sliders upwards, the higher the
number for saturation the stronger the colour will be and the higher
the lightness number the lighter the colour will be.
Move the Hue slider to change the colour.

Step 11.
Now we will use a white image and colour it using Hue/Saturation/Lightness

Close your image and open a new one, you can make it whatever size you like.
Create a shape in white, any shape will do, I made a star.

Go to Hue/Saturation/Lightness...
Click the Reset button. Put a tick into the 'colourize' box.
The edit modes will be greyed out.
The saturation slider now goes from 0 to 100

The Lightness from minus 100 to 100 and the Hue from 0 to 360

For the strongest, brightest colour move the saturation slider
to 100 and the lightness slider to minus 50. You can change the
colour by moving the hue slider.

You can change the colour's brilliance and lightness
by moving the saturation and the lightness sliders.

To colour a black image use the same method
as for a white one, except that the lightness level needs
to be 50 instead of minus 50 for the brightest colour.

Step 12.
To finish this tutorial let's have a bit of fun with a photograph.
The photo I have used is from fontplay.com/freephotos/
in the Flowers section, with lots more great flower pictures.
I have resized a copy below You could use the same one,
or experiment with different pictures.

Go to Adjust...Hue/Saturation/Lightness...
Click the Reset Button. We are going to edit several times,
so don't click the ok button untill the end of this step.

Using the Master Edit mode drag the Saturation slider to minus 100
Your picture in the preview window will turn to shades of grey

Now change the Edit mode to Reds and drag the Saturation slider up to 100
All the red areas from the original picture will be red again.

If you move the Hue slider you can change the red to a different colour

I moved the Hue back to zero, as I like the red.
You could stop there and have the red flowers with everything else in grey,
I think that looks very effective, but you can add other colours too.

Change the Edit mode to Blues and drag the Saturation slider up to 100
The purple flowers in the original image are a mixture of blue, purple and
magenta, so using the white ring in the centre of the control ring drag
the adjustment area a bit further round, so that it covers these colours.

I left the colour the same as the original image, but if
you want to change the colour you can move the Hue slider.
You can edit other colours too if you wish. For this example
I just put the red and blue/purple back in the grey image

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
Thankyou to my very helpful testers
To see my other tutorials click Here

If you wish to contact me you can find an email address to use included on my Site Map
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