Making a Coloring Page

Leslee and Kathy, this one is for you: How I made my coloring pages! First of all I googled "how to make coloring pages" on the internet and experimented around with the different ways they can be done. Then I spent time playing with my images and came up with what works for ME. I am using Photoshop Elements, but the steps are probably in most photo editing programs.

1. Select your photo. Here's Elanor on one of our winter walks!


2. Crop the image to cut out un-wanted clutter or disractions. The extra snow, railing, and Sophie's skirt didn't need to be there. :)


3. Now I have punched up the contrast and used something called "Poster Edges" to make the dark outlines.


4. In this step I have lightened the shadows and increased the mid tone highlights. Next, I individually selected several of the colors that were kind of dark and lightened them.


5. Change the image to black and white. (Desaturate)


6. Last of all go to your Levels bar and slide the arrows back and forth until you get as much light and dark as you want in the picture. And that's it!


Simple photos with lots of contrast work best. If there's a lot of dark in the image, you might not be able to get it very light. Photoshop Experts could probably do much more, but this is what I came up with and it works fairly well. Good luck and happy coloring!