While in previous versions of photoscape one could simply use the Colorize feature in the photo editor to get the below effects on photos, it’s slightly more complicated in Photoscape X. But the new program gives you more options as well as the ability to do so in the batch editor if you know a bit of a work around. So here’s a tutorial for doing color overlay/tint using both the photo editor and the batch editor. Feel free to send any questions my way!
Method One: Photo Editor
If you’re anything like me and you have an iconing problem and therefore have hundreds of icons to edit at a time, this method probably isn’t for you. But if you’re the type of person that has a modicum of restraint and only has a few dozen icons, then this method should work just fine for you. It does give a few extra options that the batch editor doesn’t.
So, first things first. Open your base icon in the photo editor. If you want to edit light levels or anything else, best to do it before adding the overlay otherwise you’ll be adjusting your added color instead. On the right side of the screen click the grayscale option for coloring (red box). If you don’t want your icons to be monochrome and instead just want to add a tint to your icons you can skip this step. Then, open the Adjustments tab (blue box).
Scroll down in the adjustments tab until you find the Color Fill option.
This will open the Color Fill pop up. You can adjust the color, blend mode, and level of opacity as you see fit. Higher opacity means a more intense color, and you can see a few of the different blend options below.
The other option in this pop up is the mask option. This lets you apply the overlay to parts of the image instead of the whole thing. The default is a circular overlay in the center, but you can change the shape (triangle, line, free draw) by choosing the options on the right and the position/dimensions of the overlay area by clicking and dragging on the image. You can also invert the areas by checking the invert mask box.
When you’re done, click apply to apply the changes. You can apply one color fill on top of another for different color effects, but you may want to try the batch editor method instead because you can preview and change things easier. From here you can go ahead with any other edits, whether it be resizing or adding a frame or what have you.
Note that if you want to try something different, you can try Pattern Fill as well, which is right next to Color Fill in the Adjustments menu. The pop up is essentially the same, except instead of color you choose a pattern and there is a slide to adjust the scale of the pattern.
Method Two: Batch Editor
[EDIT: A recent update now allows blend mode to be changed for figures in the same way as images have been able to in the past. For this reason, you can skip the part about making a template and instead skip to the part about the batch editor if you wish to still get the same effect. You would just insert a figure instead of an image and adjust the color of the figure in the pop up.]
As I mentioned before, if you have way too many icons like I do, this is probably the method for you unless you want to spend hours using the photo editor. There are a few trade offs with this method. You cannot do masks in the same manner and there aren’t as many blend mode options, but if you’re layering overlays on top of one another it makes it a lot easier to preview and change things.
We’re actually going to start in the photo editor for this method to make the template for the overlay. So, click the three dots in the bottom right corner and choose New... from the menu.
There are a few ways to set up your template. For now, I’m just going to cover the solid color because that’s the easiest way to understand the process. For solid color, the size of the new image doesn’t matter. Click on the color box and choose the color you want for your overlay--in this case, I’m doing orange. Be sure the slider (opacity) is all the way to the right and then click okay.
Now we have a big orange square and no need to do any further editing so go ahead and save it as you wish.
It doesn’t hurt to make a few different templates of the same color in different shades just so you have options when you get into the batch editor. I personally have a folder where I save all of my textures and miscellaneous templates so I always have them on hand. You’ll notice I have quite the rainbow of colors at my disposal.
With that taken care of, we can switch over to the batch editor. If you’re not familiar with it, I’ll point you to my batch editor tutorial for a rundown of the features as I’m only going to cover what’s relevant to this tutorial. So I’ve loaded the icons I’m working with, gone ahead and resized them, changed the color mode to grayscale, and adjusted the light/color filters to my liking. Under the insert dropdown I’m going to go ahead and add an image--in this case, my template.
When you first insert the template it will be a solid color. Obviously this isn’t going to work if I want to actually see my icons, so I’ll go ahead and change some options in the pop up, notably the blend mode.
First thing you may notice when you go to change the blend mode is that there aren’t as many options as in the photo editor. You can still adjust the opacity, with a higher opacity being a more intense color. One thing to point out is that anything outside the 100x100 dimensions I’ve resized my icons to will be cut off, which means the dark square around the icon where the template goes past the edge in the preview will not appear in the final product. I’ve decided I like the way Multiply looks with these icons so I’m going to go ahead and save them.
Now it’s time to try something a little crazy. Back in the insert drop down I went ahead and added a pink template for kicks and changed the blend mode to color dodge to get this effect. Note that the pink template was loaded on top of the orange template. If I choose, I can swap them by sending the pink template to the back using the highlighted option on the pop up.
The top row is pink on top of orange while the bottom row is orange on top of pink, nothing about their properties changed aside from their relative positions. Of course, if you continued to mess with the blend mode and opacity of the two you could generate several different outcomes. This is also why I mentioned earlier that it can be useful to have multiple shades of the same color: you can layer the shades on top of one another to tune your icons to the color outcome you want.
*Batch Editor Extras*
Shapes: If you want to make shaped icons, you will have to run your icons through the batch editor twice. Once to add the overlay and then a second time to shape the colored icons. Just be sure to remove all settings except the frame for the second batch. If you try to run them all through once, the template color will fill the transparent margin between the image and the 100x100 edge.
Transparent Textures: You can use the overlay technique for more than just coloring. Combine textures with colors for different effects. How everything is layered will impact how they will turn out.
Shaping Templates: You can also change the shape of a template in the object pop up. Adjusting the level of roundness rounds the corners while under the shapes tab you can choose from a variety of shapes. Then just resize on the image as you like. In this way you can make something similar to a color fill mask in the photo editor.
Other Templates: Solid color isn’t your only option when first making a template. You can choose a pattern fill instead of a fill color when you create a new image. You can also make a transparent image (slider to the left in the new image window) and insert objects or text or use the pen tool to create something different.
So that’s all I’ve got, folks. If you’ve got any questions, don’t hesitate to shoot them my way!










