Figure 1 - False color added to a black and white solar image. Hold your mouse cursor over the image to see a comparison between the original image and the false-color one.

In the previous example, we pulled the red channel out of a narrowband hydrogen-alpha image of the Sun to produce a black-and-white image that had more detail than the original color image.

We can now add false color to this image for aesthetic and informational purposes.

Note that pulling out the red channel and pasting it into a new image will result in a grayscale image. To make it a false-color image, we need to convert it to RGB color.

• From the pull-down menu at the top, go to Image > Mode > RGB Color.

Now we will add the false color. There are several different methods to accomplish this, but here we will use the Saturation command in Photoshop.

• From the pull-down menu at the top, go to Image > Adjustments > Hue and Saturation (Figure 2).

Figure 2 - Photoshop's Saturation Command

• Check the Colorize box (Figure 2, Number 1).

• Adjust the Hue slide to change the color (Figure 2, Number 2).

• Adjust the Saturation slider to about 85 (Figure 2, Number 3).

• Adjust the Lightness slider (Figure 2, Number 4).

Figure 3 - False color added to a black and white solar image. Hold your mouse cursor over the image to see a comparison between the original image and the false-color one.