Starting off with inspiration from Milton Bradley’s textbook: Experimenting with transparency channels is one of the easiest ways to introduce color into your imagery. Want to punch up a black and white photo? Add a color overlay. Need to standardize the visual branding of a product? Ditto.
Compared to solid backgrounds, transparent color overlays can look softer while also adding depth. In the below example, a red color overlay was added to a series of photos to retain the product’s (ESPN) branding colors, rather than let the teams’ brand colors compete for attention.
by Nathan Riley for green chameleon