Open the portrait in Photoshop Elements’ Colorize Photo guided edit, then paint colour onto skin, hair and clothing one area at a time using its built-in swatches and brush.
What you need
- Photoshop Elements 2021 or later, on Windows or Mac
- A digital copy (scan or photo) of the black-and-white portrait, saved to your computer
- A mouse, or a graphics tablet if you have one — a mouse works fine too
- About 20 to 30 minutes, more if the portrait has a lot of detail
Work on a copy
Make a copy of the photo file before you start, and work on that copy. Colourising changes the picture permanently once you save over the original, so keeping the untouched black-and-white file safe means you can always start again if it goes wrong.
How to colourise the portrait
- Open Photoshop Elements and use File, then Open, to load your portrait.
- Switch to Guided mode along the top of the screen, then choose Color under the Guided Edits list, and click Colorize Photo.
- Elements will walk you through adding colour one area at a time. Click Add Color, then click a colour swatch close to a natural skin tone.
- Use the brush shown on screen to paint over the face and neck. Make the brush smaller for edges near the hairline and ears — Elements shows a brush size slider you can drag.
- Click Add Color again and pick a new swatch for hair, then paint over just the hair. Repeat once more for clothing, and again for the background, choosing a fresh colour swatch each time.
- If colour spills onto the wrong area, use the eraser tool included in this guided edit to rub it back off, then repaint more carefully at a smaller brush size.
- Elements gives you an opacity or blend slider for the whole effect — pull it back slightly if the colour looks too strong or too flat compared with a real photo.
- When you are happy, click Done, then use File, Save As, and give the file a new name so the original black-and-white scan is untouched.
Check the colour stays inside the lines
Zoom in to 100% and look along the edges of the face, hair and collar — colour should stay inside those lines, not bleed onto the background. Skin should look like skin, not orange, yellow or grey. If you have a colour photo of the same person from around the same era, it is a handy real-world comparison for tone.
If Guided mode doesn’t offer this
If the guided edit is not listed, check Elements is fully updated through Help, then Updates — older versions use a different menu path. If the brush keeps missing small areas, zoom the image in first (Ctrl/Cmd and +), then paint — it is much easier to stay inside the lines at a larger view.
Next step
Once you are comfortable colourising by hand, try Colourise a black-and-white portrait with an AI tool to see how an automatic version compares.
Sources and date checked
Adobe’s own Photoshop Elements Help documentation for the Colorize Photo guided edit. Checked 22 September 2026. Researched from current app documentation — this guide has not been run through step by step on this particular photo.