I designed a collage made to look like one photo in Photoshop. In addition, the collage also had to be colorized solely using layer masks, adjustment layers, blending modes, and the brush tool.
There were no specific requirements of the contents of the photos used for the collage, so I chose to create a family portrait and “construct” a living room for the family to stand in. All of the pieces used to create this collage includes: the man, woman, dog, couch, wallpaper, wood siding, floor, window, and the outside. Most of these photos were already black and white, but any image with color had to be altered to black and white in order to recolor it.
One thing that I had to enforce throughout the rest of the piece is the strong light on the woman’s right side that also appears in the original photo; so gradients with the multiply blending mode were used on the other objects to create a light source that’s out of view. If given more time, I’d probably find a non-destructive way of toning down the light on her right side, most likely using levels and curves.