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Red Flag Over Reich – Photo Effects

Hallo. 9th of May. This is a great day for our country and not only ours. This is a great victory day over the fascism. This is why I’ve decided to make this tutorial. This is going to be a color fill tutorial, specking in other words we will take a black and white picture and add color to it.

So let’s go.

Here is our picture. This is a well known shot that is called red flag over the Reichstag and it was made by a Russian photographer.

photo effects

Create a new layer to begin to paint on.

photo effects

But firs change the image mode from grayscale to RGB or CMYK.

photo effects

Before begin to color my image I’ve decided to apply a gradient map (adjustments layer).

photo effects

photo effects

photo effects

Set this very gradient map layer to linear burn blending mode.

photo effects

We got this sepia look to our picture. Now another goal here is to show that our picture is Old with all the scratches and so on.

Now let’s work over some tones and value.

Grab an eraser and erase a little bit of our gradient map layer. I’ve chosen this brush with torn edges, you could use and ripped edges brush to do this.

photo effects

photo effects

Note to switch directly on the mask and not on the map itself.

photo effects

Here you can see how I’ve done my erasing. I’ve erased the part near the top right corner that means that the light will come from over there. This will be our lightest point, somewhere over there.

photo effects

The details should be painted in the last part of the work, but I’ve decided to set a little bit of lighting on my character.

photo effects

I also like to create another adjustment color balance layer.

photo effects

I will let’s say erase the part of my adjustment by using black to white gradient. Note to stay on the mask.

photo effects

photo effects

I also want to get rid of my adjustment a little bit more, go to the Channels box, choose COLOR BALLNCE (mask) and work a little bit with brushes.

photo effects

photo effects

Now I don’t now why but I like to pant some fog spreading through the city.

photo effects

Choose COLOR as the mode to your brush. Create a new layer (FOGY).

And begin to paint the fog. I’m also using a ripped edged one.

photo effects

photo effects

photo effects

And some color to the fog and for and the image corner area. Use soft low flow brush.

photo effects

photo effects

Now
I will ad some color to the uniforms of the soldiers. I don’t really
sure that they were green. But I want them to be green.

So
I’m just picking a most simple brush here, setting the flow to about 30
– 50 % (depending on the tablet you use), setting the color
mode to COLOR and toggling it to normal some times.

photo effects

photo effects

photo effects

And the final step: a little bit of Color balance and some noise.

photo effects

photo effects

And we are basically done. So I hope you learn something. Don’t be afraid to color the photos.

photo effects

Enjoy.

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