We've all seen the pictures on greeting cards and coffee mugs... adorable little kids dressed up like adults and doing something unrealistically romantic. The pictures are all in black & white, right? - except for the flowers, or the big hats, or the box of chocolates. Man, those kids are everywhere! I even remember how our wedding photographer said she was taking a night class on how to paint color into a black & white photo, and me thinking at the time, "I bet I could do that digitally."

Well, you can, and it's incredibly easy. But first, some examples. Click on any of the pictures below to see a 640x480 close-up of each shot.

So what's the magic trick? It's "cloning". Here's how I did it. Take the original photograph and paste a side-by-side copy in your image editor. Grey-scale the original, then bump the color depth back up to 16 million. Enlarge them both, so you can get really detailed. Then position the cloning brush over the original, making sure to mark the exact X/Y coordinates when you lock it in. Move to the copy and place the brush on those identical coordinates before you begin the clone process. At that point it's simply a matter of brushing in the color wherever you like.

Of course, it takes a little getting used to. And you quickly discover how to adjust the brush hardness and size to suit your subject. But really, after I did a couple of pictures, it became an incredibly easy process to duplicate.

Pretty cool stuff, huh?

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