A tech support question came up recently about how to automate colorizing black and white icon images. With the end goal of putting together a movie brush with a more diverse set of internal colors than just black and white.
There are several different approaches you can take in Studio Artist to do this. And since anything you can record as a PASeq (paint action sequence) can be used to process a folder of images to a second output folder or processed images (or to an output movie file).
One approach is to use the Selective Color Map image operation (ip op) effect. The screen shot below shows what i mean by this.
Note that i setup the Ip Source to process the Source Image rather than the canvas. Doing it this way means that i only have to record a single action step in my paint action sequence (PASeq) for auto-processing a whole folder of images with the colorization effect.
The Selective Color Map ip op effect works with the first 2 colors in the first 2 Source Color Memories. Source Color Memory 1 contains the color that will be mapped to the second Source Color Memory 2. So in the screen shot above, the black color in the source image icon with be mapped to the blue color specified in color memory #2.
If you hold your cursor above one of the little color memory squares (or any other studio artist interface control) a help tip will come up that tells you the control's name. Additional informaiton about the control will be in the status area at the bottom left of the main workspace.
If you hold down the c key and then mouse down into the source image or canvas in studio artist, the color in either of those images below the cursor will become the current source color (the larger color square in the source area). I used that feature to select the black icon color. I used the Source Color picker to setup the blue mapping color. Option click in the any of the color memories will record the current source color into that memory.
Depending on the degree of anti-aliasing in your icon images, you may need to play with the Tolerance and Transition controls in the Selective Color Map effect to get the best result. When you are happy with your effect, turn on PASeq recording, record the action step, then turn off PASeq recording. You can then run the Action : Process with Paint Action Sequence : Image to Image menu command to process an entire set of icon images in a folder to a set of colorized images in a second folder. Each image in the source image folder will be colorized with the Selective Color Map effect you recorded.
As a more advanced example, you could use PASeq Timeline keyframing to keyframe the destination mapping color over time. This would allow you to colorize the folkder of icon images with a varying destination mapping color.
If you need more help:
Here's a tip on processing a movie file with a single ip op effect. Just replace the effect discussed in that tutorial tip with the Selective Color Map effect for this particular example.
Replies
I mentioned that there is more than one way to colorize black and white images in Studio Artist. So there are other approaches you could use to do it. Another approach would be to use selection masking.
So i started by erasing the canvas to white. I then used source selection to select the black parts of the source image. I then erased the canvas to a red source color while masking was turned on. So, this approach is a action step PASeq.
Here's a tip on working with selection and masking if you aren't familiar with it.
I used local growth selection, but keep in mind that if you do this, it's position sensitive. So global color growth would be a better option for processing a whole folder of different images.