Automatically colorize your photos

Last updated on May 18, 2021

Learn how to quickly transform a black and white photo to color or change the colors in specific areas of a photo.

Automatically colorize a photo

Open a photo in Photoshop Elements.

Import a photo to colorize
Choose Enhance > Colorize Photo. You can also press Option+Command+R (macOS)/Alt+Ctrl+R (Windows).
A preview is generated in the Colorize Photo workspace. Four color options will appear in the panel on the right. Choose the option that works best for you.

Click the Before/After toggle to compare results with the original photo.
Click OK or click Reset if you want to return to the original photo.

Open a photo in Photoshop Elements.
Choose Enhance > Colorize Photo. You can also press Option+Command+R (macOS)/Alt+Ctrl+R (Windows).
Switch the toggle in the right panel to select Manual.
In the right panel, use the Quick Selection Tool or Magic Wand Tool to select the areas where you want to change the color.
Click the Droplet tool and add the droplet in the selection to mark the area you want to recolor. You can add multiple droplets based on your needs.

Add a droplet in the selection to change color.

Note:

To focus on one selection at a time, press Control+D (Win)/Cmd+D (macOS). You can also choose Select > Deselect to remove the existing selection before making a new selection.
For each droplet, a set of customized colors is displayed in the Color Palette. Simply select a droplet (selected droplets appear with a blue outline) and click the desired color from the Color Palette.

You can also use the vertical slider in the All Applicable Colors panel or use the icon to select a desired color.

The last used color appears next to the Color Palette swatches. You can use this to select the previously used color.

Manually change colors in your photo.

Switch off the Show Droplets toggle to view the result without droplets. You can also view the original and edited photo using the Before-After toggle. To cancel all changes and to return to the original photo, click Reset.
Once you're happy with the result, click OK.