Software: Ulead PhotoImpact 10 Author: Debbie Hardisty Home Page: Debisty Designs Title: Let's Do Some Colorizing Skill Level: Beginner Featured Tools: Grid & Partition Colorize Pen Color Balance Hue & Saturation Additional Files: A photograph or other image. Description: Learn how to use the grid & partition feature in PI to cut a photograph into sections and then colourize each section using various methods.

My terms of use for this tutorial are simple....What you create using this tutorial is yours to do with as you please. A link back to this tut is appreciated but is not a requirement. The tutorial itself along with the images herein are copyrighted to me and all rights are reserved.

Colourizing a photograph can be so much fun, but why stick to traditional looks when you really want something quick and simple to do, with outstanding results? Stay with me and I'll show you how easy it can be.

Standard Mode vs Basic Mode

PhotoImpact 10 has two work modes, Basic and Standard. Basic Mode features a simplified workspace with larger buttons and the most common functions whereas the Standard Mode displays all of the functions. We will be using the Standard Mode in this tutorial.

To check your mode, click Workspace on the Menu Bar. If the Standard Mode is greyed out, that means you are already in the Standard Mode. If not, click Standard Mode now.

Warning: If you switch from Standard to Basic Mode, and you have custom settings, you will lose all your custom settings.

Let's Get Started!

Open your chosen photograph. You're welcome to use the same one I used which can be gotten from here. Drag it onto PI, right click on it and select Merge All.
Note: If you don't see the option to Merge All, then the photograph is already merged and you can simply move on to the next step in this tutorial.

Click on Web/Grid & Partition. In the Grid and Partition box you can see that I chose to have 3 rows and 5 columns simply because I thought it divided my photograph nicely, but you may choose other values if you prefer. A grid line of 3 is just right, not too thick and not too thin. Be sure that you check the boxes for Draw Border Line and Convert Cells to Object before clicking on the OK button. Your photograph will now look something like mine below.

Press the Enter key on your keyboard to deselect everything on your image and you'll see that the selection lines will disappear.

Now here is where the fun starts :-)

Fig. 1

Fig. 2   Fig. 3

***Click on a square between one of your grid lines. That square has now been selected to work on. Find the colorize pen in your tool bar (Fig 1.) and then in the attributes bar (Fig 2.), alter the Shape to a straight line with a size of 100; a Color of your own choosing; a Transparency of your choosing should you want one; and a Soft Edge of 0. Colour your active square. You don't even have to worry about going over the grid lines because just that one active square will alter colour. This is great fun isn't it? Press the Enter key on your keyboard to deactivate that square and then click on the Pick Tool (Fig 3.) before trying to activate another square.***

Repeat from *** to *** until all squares have been coloured to your liking. If you're happy with your colourized photograph, then right click and select Merge All. Go to Web/Image Optimizer to save your image as a .JPG

You've finished and what fantastic results you got! I hope you're very please with your achievements :-)

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There are other ways to colour those squares that you might like to try sometime.

You could click on the + or - signs of the red, green and blue buttons of the color control panel and get some great effects.

If you don't see the color control panel under the tool panel, then you'll need to click on File/Preferences/General. Click on Tools under Catagories and then ensure that there is a check mark in the "Show Quick Color Control Panel" box.

You might prefer to click on Photo/Color Balance and when the color balance box pops open move the Thumbnail slider to 50 and then click on the thumbnail of your choosing.

Yet another way is to click on Photo/Hue & Saturation and when the hue and saturation pops open be sure that a dot is in the Colorize box and then move the Hue slider up or down to find a colour of your liking. You may also decide to move the Saturation slider down a bit to lessen the brightness of the chosen colour.

 

Here is another image I did using all the above methods.

I hope this tutorial has opened your eyes to the world of basic colourizing with PhotoImpact 10 and that you have enjoyed it.

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