How to Color Splash Photos

Posted on February 13, 2010 at 5:12 am

Color splashing is a very basic photo editing technique that is used to accentuate certain features of a photograph.

By leaving certain areas of a photo colored, and filling the rest of the photo with grayscale, you can highlight certain parts of an image to make them stand out. Chances are, you have probably seen a color splashed photo before. Here is an example.

flowers

It’s a pretty sweet effect that can make certain images pop. So, how do we add this effect to regular photos? There are a variety of different ways to achieve color splashing. It all really depends on which photo editing software that you use.

However, for this tutorial, we will be using the free online editor, Photobucket. So, to get started, you will need to get a Photobucket account if you do not already have one. Basic accounts are completely free. You can get one here.

photobucket home

After you are all setup with Photobucket, make sure that you are logged in to your account. Click the My Home button to get to your images page. Click the Upload images & videos button located in the center of the My Home screen. Select your photo, and click the Open button to upload it to Photobucket.

photobucket uploader

Upon upload, the next screen will ask you to enter a title, description, and tags for your photo. This is all optional. However, you should at least enter a title so that you can keep track of your photos easily. Go ahead and enter a title and click the Save & Return to Album button.

photo tags

You should now be at your album home page. Click the edit link which is located directly above your photo, next to the move, share, and delete links. This will automatically load your photo into the Photobucket editor.

edit link photobucket

From the photo editor, click the effects tab, than the grayscale button. Your image should turn black and white. Click the advanced options button to load the editing pane.

photobucket navbar

Set the Apply to: option in the editing pane to Painted Region. Make sure that the button is set to Original and not Effect. Click to put a checkmark in the Invert box. Move the slider from left to right to resize the cursor to work best with your image.

editing pane

Move the image zoom slider left or right to zoom in on the area that you would like to add color to.

photobucket zoom

Position the cursor over the part of the image that you want to color splash. Hold down the left mouse button and proceed to “paint” the image and unmask the original color.

beyonce color splash

After you have finished with the color splash, move the zoom slider to zoom back to the original size.

zoom slider final

Click the Save a Copy button to save your freshly edited photo. Wait a couple of minutes for the image to save, and that’s it.

save a copy link

You should now have easily color splashed a photo. Below is the final result from the demo.

Beyonce Final

» Filed Under Computer Tips

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Comments

14 Responses to “How to Color Splash Photos”

  1. Patrick said on : February 20th, 2010 at 9:12 am

    Thank you!! Great post, I will be trying to color splash some photos tonight…. :)


  2. wochelei said on : February 28th, 2010 at 2:13 am

    thanks for the instruction..u really made it easy! three thumbs up!:)


  3. Joel T said on : March 9th, 2010 at 8:36 pm

    Thanks for the post, really cool! I’m about 55 years old and I never thought I would see the day where I could color splash my own photos on my own computer!


  4. Amber said on : March 21st, 2010 at 9:52 pm

    OOMG! this is so helpful. Who knew is could be so easy to color:) Thanksss


  5. Maria said on : April 12th, 2010 at 12:24 pm

    You are awesome! Thank you for the post. I always wanted to learn how to color splash my photos and now I can, thanks to your posting!


  6. chuck said on : April 12th, 2010 at 10:02 pm

    tnx soooooooo much. I’ve been trying different editing sites and still haven’t found a good color splashing one like this…


  7. valerie said on : April 21st, 2010 at 3:07 pm

    I must be doing something wrong, when i paint there is no color..? Help!!


  8. Kathy said on : June 7th, 2010 at 4:08 pm

    Thanks for the instructions. I have been color splashing photos for the last hour, instead of doing things that I should be doing.


  9. alice said on : June 9th, 2010 at 6:19 pm

    omg. thank u soo much!!! now i can finally colorsplash. ive always wanted to know how. :] thanks!


  10. Keyla said on : June 14th, 2010 at 9:15 pm

    This is not working out for me. I may be a blonde but still, this should be simple and easy and it isn’t.


  11. Hali said on : July 15th, 2010 at 9:06 pm

    I must be doing something wrong. When I paint, there is no color.

    Help!!


  12. alex said on : September 10th, 2010 at 11:16 pm

    OMFG!! thankyou SOO MUCH! u ROCK :D


  13. kayla said on : September 13th, 2010 at 5:00 am

    how do you change the colour you want to use? its just coming up orange ???


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