Michael Hooker Microscopy Facility (MHMF.ORG)

Converting B/W Image into color using Photoshop

Assuming the starting image is gray scale (b/w) and 8 bit.  (Details will be different for 16 bit images or RGB images).

• Run Photoshop
• Open image
• The image mode should be displayed as Indexed.  If not do "Image -> Mode -> Indexed Color"
• 
• Pull down:- Image -> Mode -> Color Table
• 
• Left click and hold down on top left square and drag to lower right square
• 
• Color picker will pop up requesting first color - make this one black (red=0, green=0, blue=0)
• 
• Color picker will pop up requesting last color - make this one 255 for color you want to make the image.  e.g. red=255, green=255, blue=0 for yellow
• 
• Color table should have a yellow gradient
• 
• Press OK
• 

Done - Image is now colorized.
Do File -> Save as to save new colorization

Caution: Index color images sometimes get distorted when they are resized.

		Copyright 2001-2014  Dr. M. Chua, Program in Molecular Biology & Biotechnology, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599
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