Hi all!

I'm wondering if you can help me. I'm just learning how to hand color Black & White photos. I have the basic concept and use the method of layering and selections and targeting the color (adjusting the opacity). What I'm wondering is, how far do I go? I'm sure it's a matter of taste, but say I'm working on a family picture... It takes a fair amount of time to color each person. Would you go the next step and color the entire background?

Here is a picture of myself, sister and brother. I have will attatch the original, hand painted without background and finally the starting of my painting the background ie: wall and painting.

I'd love your oppinion.

I'll have to attach the photos seperately as it says the size exceeds the max amount
:depressed

Here is the original....

Here is my first attemp at hand coloring - no background colored...

Finally, the background being colored. So far only the painting and wall....

I like the background colored. I think you did a good job on that wall.

Sharon

Hi Again!

Just noticed the resizing of the pictures makes them look very pixellated. The originals were saved as tiff's and are an additional 25% larger.

;)

Thanks Sharon,

I know the original wall color was a drabby cream! When I layered cream over and tried overlay - it looked horrible. I tried using a verigated color so it wasn't as noticable and it hid a lot of the noise. Do you think I should color the couch and the rest??

I don't know. I'm no artist, I have to try it because I have trouble picturing it. I know if I like it when I see it.

My grandparents had a photography studio and they had a woman who worked for them who did all their "coloring". She was incredible, could open closed eyes, etc.

If it's that kind of effect you want, it has to be very subtle, which I think yours is.

Sharon

First of all, I think you did a great job with coloring the kids. As for the cream colored wall, remember that the flash illuminates the foreground making the background seem even darker. To apply cream color over that won't work because it is darkened too much. Now ask yourself what it is in the image that is important to you. Is that small section of couch important? Or the wall color? You have the kids just about popping out at you and that's what I would think was what you want to bring the viewers eyes too. I'm no photographer but I know when I look at this photo what I remember seeing is the faces of those children and the vivid red dress and dark blue suit offset by that creamy yellow dress. Give your self a pat on the back for doing a great job coloring them and forget the unimportant parts. In my opinion, it's alot of work for not much gain. What's that saying?? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."? :)
DJ

Well, I tried coloring the couch, pillow and straightening the picture. I guess coloring the background is a matter of personal taste. Although, I'd love to hear how others tackle a picture like this and if they recommend coloring the backgrounds.

P.S. That's me in the red dress! ha ha

I think you did a fine job on this, and I like the background colored. On my monitor it looks a bit heavy on the magenta end (I would prefer a bit warmer color). Although I love the old black & whites, Isn't it great how these come to life with color?!
Vikki

Lisa, it sure looks like you're catching onto hand coloring very quickly. Nice job.

I will have to agree with Vikki, though, that it does lean a bit heavy into magenta. Wonder if your monitor is calibrated?

I think you're doing a great job for someone just getting started on it. Like the man said, you're catching on very fast. I think what you choose to color is a personal choice, and I also agree that the skin tones could be a little warmer.

Ed.

Thanks Vikki, Tim and Ed (I appreciate the encouragement). It sure is fun taking a plain Black & White Photo and bringing it to life. How would you suggest I tackle toning down the magenta. I've tried Paintshop Pro manual color adjustment - I didn't really like the results. I have also tried manually adjusting the color balance (Photoshop). Each time I moved the slider over to tone the magenta color the green and blue background got brighter. I've also tried Photoshop to look at the different color variations. Most gave the overall picture a yellow hue :(

P.S. Ed - I'm sure my monitor is calibrated... remember the horrible time I had calibrating monitor, scanner etc...

What a fun picture!! The expressions on all of your faces are priceless!! :) You're colorization looks VERY natural. GREAT JOB!! I downloaded the photo to play around with the color balance. I used the Color Balance tool in Photoshop:
Highlights: +5/0/-3
Midtones: -1/+3/-3
Shadow: 0/+4/0
I didn't have any method to getting these numbers - just fooled around with the sliders. After I changed the color balance, I also increased the saturation +15.

I probably shouldn't be posting this b/c I've been staring at the screen for too many hours and can barely distinguish color casts (meaning I'm likely to over correct), but here's what it looks like after the adjustments I made.

Jeanie

That looks great Jeanie, thanks for the step by step. The colors do look easier on the eye and I don't believe you've over- corrected. I like the results.

I have to laugh everytime I look at this picture. I was on 2 1/2 when it was taken but remember to this very day how my brother was not co-operating and was given a stern lecture - hence the big pout.

Try using "Variations" in Photoshop to adjust the Magenta.

Whenever I do a coloring, I usually start off by applying a sepia type tone (only warmer) over the whole photograph. Another thing that I've read, and found to be true, is that when coloring, it's best to keep the contrast lower. Most of those types of photos don't have good contrast, and the color is usually subdued. Here's an example of what I mean. It's just a quick rendering, but another way to tackle the job.

Lisa,

Here's a tip you might use for future jobs....Go to the "Resources" area on this site and download Bruce Beard's Skin and Hair charts. Then you can use the color sample tool in Photoshop to get your basic color started.

Thanks Tim. I do use the skintone and haircolor palettes and find them very helpful. I find skintone's to be a little on the yellow side and often apply several layers of at least 2 skintone colors to get the result I want. I often have to tweak the color after I've done a test print depending on the results. Paintshop Pro has a neat tool that allows you to manually adjust the color and it has it's own skintones built in. If the color is too yellow or even sallow or grey, I use it to add depth. I made the mistake of adding more of a magenta color to this image as it printed a little muted compaired to the original. I do find epson papers to print true to color than HP. I've experimented with a few different papers and find they very greatly.

If you adjust your coloring on the skin tones, you should isolate the areas so you only change the skin tones but still keep that rich red in the dress. I think that color tuned out great.

Just a little tip:I like to color each area on seperate layers or save my seperate color selections to load later so I can go back later on and change any colors or saturations that I'm not satisfied with without affecting the other color areas.
DJ

You havent stared too long, Jeanie. That is better. I find this interesting because this is so hard for me. The only thing I would add is maybe Lisa's right arm is still too yellow and from the start, the suit has been too purple. I'm going to try those areas but I doubt if I ever post it, I can do hideous things to color.

:eek:

Sharon

Okay, if my previous post doesn't make any sense, it's because I missed one whole page!!!!

Sorry about that.

Sharon

Thanks Vickki - the sepia tone gives the picture a more aged look as well as softer appearance overall. I know what you mean about the contrast - older pictures seem to have a great deal of shadows and less contrast due to the flash. I have read a tutorial which suggests you take the picture and colorize it adjusting the hue and saturation before you begin hand coloring. I start with basic level adjustments, midtone, highlight etc after I've scanned. Then I spend time fixing the obvious rips, dust etc. One lesson I have learned is to save, save, save. I have about 15 copies of this project with variations and saved as both a Paint Shop Pro and psd so I can later change the opacity or levels of each layer. The skin color is sure a challenge even with the skintone chart. I find most of the skin tones too yellow or orange. I end up making several adjustments to finally get a basic skin color.

Your quick rendering looks great. I appreciate you taking the time to help a newbie.

Thanks
I also keep too many copies. I never delete anything until I get a print that I'm happy with. Sometimes I don't, so I have to do rework, which generates even more copies! More is better when you've put a lot of work into something.

Regarding skin colors. I find a photo that has the skin colors I like, and use those to make my own palette. I also find that it looks more natural if the people in the photo are slightly different colors, as is true in real life.

My biggest problem is trying to find the right color mix for blonde hair. I want to get the color that you see in photos done with Marshall oils. I have yet to find one color that works. I usually end up layering a few colors on top of each other, and I've never been completely satisfied with the results.

Little nusiance aside, this is still one of my top 3 favorite things to do digitally, so it's nice to chat with someone who enjoys it as well.

Hi Again Vikki (this time I spelled it right)! Blonde hair is a tough one too. I have a friend that works on Marilyn Monroe pictures that gave me some wonderful tips. He suggested using several layers for just the right shade of blonde. He used the platinum shade for highlights and the used a darker shade for the areas that were shadowed framing the face. Then an overall color. It really does make a difference. Here is a picture of my great Aunt in which I used that method to color. Her highlights were in platinum blonde and next to her face I used a pale gold blonde and finally for all over, I used bleached blonde.

BTW - the original picture was ripped, faded and someone scribbled all over the back side. This picture took me an entire evening just to smooth out her skin! Arrrg. But the challenge - was too much to pass on. She has my colorized picture in a frame and shows it to everyone. She loves to tell everyone - "see, I told you I was a blonde" - hard to imagine with her white hair now. LOL

I thought I would attach the original. It would be fun to see someone tackle this one. I know it was a challenge for me. If anything, you see the kind of work the goes into the before and after process :)

Lisa, that is excellent. You are really talented. Kudos.

Sharon

Originally posted by OhThatGirl2001
I thought I would attach the original. It would be fun to see someone tackle this one.

Ok, here's my shot at it. I...


Used WinImage's Remove Feature, Remove Horizontal and Remove Vertical for the scratches and specks

Re-textured the cleaned area that resulted using the Dither operator

Mildly sharpened the eyes, brows and lips

Took the dynamic range of her right eye and then pushed the entire image to match. That burned the hair and the left shoulder a bit, but it really brought the face up, so I kept it.


Also - and this has nothing to do with the photo, really - but I really love the look on her face - I bet she was someone to really reckon with at this point in her life. :)

Argh... the high level of JPEG compression put a certain level of cruddism in there that's not actually in the edited image. Oh well. Se la vie, se la guerre!

It's beautiful, Walt. And you did bring out her attitude.

BTW-when I looked on the WinImages site, I couldn't find a demo. Do you know if there is one?

Sharon

Good morning. All I can say Walt is.... WOW. You did a great job on repairing this. Her skin tone is much better. I had a great deal of shadowing on the right hand side of her face. I've not heard of WinImage. Can't wait to research it now. Did you find it removed the lines without blurring the original too much? I spent hours removing the lines by cloning. I'd love to hear more about how it works.

BTW - My Great Auntie Mickey is still someone to reckon with! :)

Hi Sharon,

No, there is no demo at this point. The product download is about 60 megabytes, and when they had a demo up, the resulting download volume brought the server to its knees on a distressingly regular basis. We would sometimes see as many as 200 downloads in a day, vs. just a few actual purchase downloads per day we see now. Because of the company's location (rural Montana), more bandwidth is not available, so it's a real problem for us. It's also hard on the purchasers; they've paid for the product, and the demo downloads really increased the time it took for them to get the product they had purchased.

We are putting together a 'lite' demo, one that uses the docs that are on the Internet instead of carrying a full set in the download. That'll reduce the size to something reasonable, probably well under five megabytes. When that's done, there will be a link on the left side of the home page. It will be a few weeks before that shows up, though, as there is some testing yet to do. Because the docs for this configuration will be on the Internet, you'll have to be online in order to browse the manual. We think this will be a practical configuration, but all we can do is try, as the other way just won't work for us.

Hi OhThatGirl2002,

Attached is my attempt at retouching your Great Aunt’s Photo.

I used the Dust and Scratches tool to remove most of the scratches.

Then I blurred slightly. I made a levels adjustment and added a sepia color layer above her layer and merged. From that point on I used color layers and adjusted them with HSL. I added highlights to her eyes and darkened her lashes with the airbrush on separate layers. I also used your technique for highlighting her hair and DJ’s technique for sharpening in the red channel. Before I finished, I reselected her face and adjusted the magenta in selective color red to pink up her face a little.

Thanks for posting the original. This was fun.

Sharon J.

Great Job on Auntie Mickey's picture Sharon. The skin tone is very nice. Your hand painting skill is excellent. With some more practice... I hope to be able to achieve the same outcome.

I worked on a picture of my in-laws - who have been married this October for 50 years! 98% of all her wedding pictures were in black & white. I had a few that I scanned from slides that were color so I had a better idea of what colors to paint. I'm happy with the result but am still struggling with skintones. Any suggestions?

P.S. Thanks for taking the time to work on my pictures. I enjoy the variations and tips.

Boy does resizing and compressing to JPG look bad! LOL

As always, I like to post the original. Unfortuneatly, the original was a high res scan and I've had to resize to post to this forum. I'm afraid the resize and compression is not the best.

Well, your colored version has the dress not white and the stone not gray. It is like there is a magenta cast that is not in the original. This makes it look more like a faded color picture.

Sharon

I did color the dress and the brick on purpose. I gave the brick a sepia tone and the dress was offwhite to begin with. Perhaps I shouldn't have? Oh boy, there's that magenta issue all over again. I should re-calibrate again. Thanks Sharon.

I wouldn't take me as an authority on coloring - you are a lot better than I am. It's just my opinion.

One thing I would do is crop so that more focus is on the couple.

I enjoy your work.

Sharon

Hey Sharon,

While surfing around, I found a page that has an excellent chart for blonde hair - as well as brunette, brown etc. Check the chart out.
http://www.archangelmerchandising.com/tutorials/hair_colour/blonde.htm

Hi OhThatGirl2001,

Thanks for the link. I've downloaded it and saved it with my other color charts.

Sharon J.:)

Same here. That's a good chart and I also got the brown and brunette charts also. The site looks like it has other goodies as well.
DJ

When you look at the brunette hair page, does the last one - 32.63.40 look dark green to you? When I printed it and in Photoshop it comes out dark green. The reason I ask is to see if my calibration is off.

Thanks,

Sharon

Sharon
Your monitor is fine, it is dark green and so is the one next to it. Can't say why they thought brunettes hair could look green. I'm a brunette and I know my hair is not anywhere near green. :D I would say we forget those two examples. :D
DJ

Thank you, DJ.

That had me worried.

Sharon

Hi again Sharon,

Well, I decided to try to see how "green" the last two colors really are. Surprisingly, it was not that green used as an overlay on an existing color. It is meant to enhance the brunette tone. 69.74.57 is actually quite a nice color. I think given the right image it might just work. 32.63.40 is a bit wild but I'm going to try it and see if it works on other brunettes. I've attached good ole Auntie Mickey's image with and overlay of 69.74.57

You did a great job with this handcoloring. There is a tad bit of compression due to how you put the jpeg up! The photo has a nice warm feeling. The way handcoloring should look!

Excellent!

Todge

You're right, Lisa. I'm glad you tried it out.

Thanks,

Sharon