Like it say's this is probably the best color job you're ever going to see, I dare you to "try" and pick anything!. Old fellas shoes not included, left em till last and by then i was over it.

P.S. If you don't reply, you AGREE!

Dont know what hapened.

Toe.. Welcome to RTP

To be honest, I've seen better. Yours is not bad, but the children seem washed out compared to the contrast of the adults.

Not seeing the original no doubt flaws my critique.

I'll agree with the Swamp lady, however I do realize that uneven lighting was prevelant in that time period. I think more detail could have been brought out on the outer edge individuals and some burning on the children. Contrast is also uneven (as stated). The unvaried color on the brick background looks "colored" and incomplete. The concrete and grey suits have a redish cast as well.

As far as the overall coloring, it seems under colored to my taste. However, if this coloring "floats your boat" and you are truly as content as you imply, keep practicing, you'll get even better.

they don't look alive, they look colorized. Where's the warm skin undertone?

I could say that your arrogance is irritating but instead I'll be charitable and say that your self-confidence is admirable.

I'm with Swampy. It's not bad, but I've seen lots better. Sorry.

If you think this is the best, you've havent seen Vikki's work. http://www.pbase.com/vhansen/colorings&page=1

Nancy, Vickie's work is very good, but just browsing her gallery her before's don't appear to be in real bad shape.

The ones in the colourization gallery have been cleaned up first. Her restoration gallery has some that are in pretty bad shape and as old pics go, the OPs isnt in too bad shape.
http://www.pbase.com/vhansen/restorations&page=all

now THAT'S good coloring and restoration work, thanks for the link, it's pretty motivating.

Its not just good, its the best I've ever seen and probably the best I'll ever be likely to see.

Take it on the chin Toe, Vikkis work is far better.
Her coloring is beautiful.

I second Swampy; the kids need some attention, but what with the eyes of the purple lady?
…and don’t be intimidated with Vikki’s work, you could be as good as she is or…better.

Could this be the best?

No! It's OK, but I've seen lots better.

Thank you for your welcome Swampy, Of course your right about the kids but i didn't have access to a burn tool till 2 days ago, I finally got photoshop, a mate upgraded and gave me his copy of ps7 the work was done with photodeluxe that i got OEM with my scanner back in 96.

LQQKER, again thank you for your comments, I'm learning a lot just by reading what you guys talk about. The red cast you picked up on must be compression, cos i was too lazy to give any of the black and white stuff colors.

The Veed, again, Right, only excuse is I just try and use every pixel i can when doing a restoration, without actually "Painting" if i can help it, Plus i don't really trust myself with a brush anyway.
I know this is going to sound dumb! but i just colored the bottom layer and then erased the parts from the. top layer that i wanted to color and then just adjusted the bottom layer to suit, Done all the skin in one hit, I reckon it worked well for the 3 people on the left and the kids, bride and groom too dark, the two on the right albino's!


dkcoats, Haha! Sorry to disappoint but I'm neither of those! The post was trying to get you to smile more than frown, i should have put in one of those little smileys.
I was just fishing for the best way for you guys to have a look for a start, and then tell me everything that i couldn't see. Trust me! I know I'm far from perfect, Just trying my best like everyone else.

NancyJ, I have checked out vikki's stuff, and i agree with swampy, Very good! But i wish i had some high res photo's to muck around with too, and I'm not saying i would do half as good a job as her, but i think with these low res photos you can only do so much.
half of these photo's in the restoration section, One black pixel out of place and you have a new life form.



Anyway thank you all for your replies, I had a quick go with photoshop to do what you asked, I don't real know how to use it yet but it looks very impressive! Lots of gizmo's! I like the healing tool and i tried to use the lighting filter to add some light where it should have been on the left, burnt the kids a bit, Unfortunately i think the smallest one was just a color void from the start and in motion when the picture was taken.




I have added the same file with some of the things you mentioned adjusted, Color saturation is plus 50 just for the sake of comparison, I known you can see my slap happy cloning now, Just to see if you like the colors!


Just seen chillin and Gary R and rats.
again vikki is very good, People like that inspire me to do the best job i can, For me it's about leaving as many of the original pixels in place as i can,

So i suppose all my skin coloring is always going to be a little bit too uniform, just hope you like my choice of colors, It was all done with hue and eraser.


chillin, maybe one day. She is VERY good.

Oh! and chillin, Shes wearing specks, they look pretty trendy for that time too, look like sunnies to me. i was the most happy with how she turned out, Her face i so smooth at any resolution, looks heaps better before compression but i bet you've all heard that before. ha ha.



LQQKER, I forgot to mention that the original photo is from the restoration challenge section, titled Leeds wedding, Now you are going to be able to pick the flaws in my restoration work as well, Oh well, The critique question was really just about the coloring anyway.

Hi toe,

Prefer the later rendition, though perhaps the blue dress could do with toning down just a tad.

Thought I'd give you a bit of local knowledge.

I spent my early childhood in Leeds, in a house not dissimilar to the one in your picture. The paving slabs were usually a sort of sandstone, so should be coloured more a sort of sandy/grey colour. Ditto the window sill.

However your brick colour is pretty close to the colour of brick used in most Leeds Council housing of that period. A little colour variation would give it greater depth and realism.

There you go Gary,
I "tried" to finish it with your suggestions, last post i promise! put some yellow over the whole thing in the end, just seemed to look good when looking at the color variations, i thought it made the color differences less harsh, but i probably just turned it yellow< anyway i think the bricks do look a little better like that. i think the sill might have turned out like you were talking about but ground too furry from cloning to take color to well, I hope the last is at least better than the first. Thanks for your time everyone.

All I can say is this is definately not the best no where near

soory just my opinion Zganie

P.S. there is quite a bit wrong with it the mans hankerchief pink? not going to happen, the ladies Violet/purple dress sorry no good,the two young girls look possesed Like the others have said Vikki has excellent work on her site ,so take a look

Zganie,
Thank you for replying.


just for comparison, Here is the spawn totally untouched other than to size the whole picture to 800 pixels wide, then crop just the kids, then compress that file the same ratio as the whole file would have been,the picture is 273 pixels wide and 157 high, from what i can tell the little girls face is approx: 30 pixels wide and 25 high, big sis is about 28 by 29.
I think if 'I' had tried to add any information in there they would truly have needed father merrin's assistance in a real hurry. :)

Any helpful hints on dealing with this level of detail when coloring would be good, we're all trying to learn from each other here so if anyone has any ideas feel free.


P.S. i promise i didn't add anything other than blue to "purple lady", Didn't even touch hanky's, even that carnation was supposed to be redder. :)

there is quite a bit wrong with it the mans hankerchief pink? not going to happen

Don't know whether my eyesight's going, but I don't see any pink handkerchiefs, a few pink roses yes, but no pink hankies.

I like the latest version Toe, though probably the skin areas need masking from the yellow tint.

toe, I must say, you're thread title is a unique approach for getting attention and critiques!
So here's mine:
The biggest problem, I see, is revealed by this statement:
...i was too lazy...
I think everyone agrees, if you want quality results, you have to put in some quality time and work.

I read the references made to my colorings (Thanks to all for your comments! I'm quite flattered). I feel it's necessary to note that having high resolution images will not improve your colorings. If anything, higher quality images require more time and work because the detail is more evident. If you mess up on those, it's quite obvious.

• Everything must be colored if you want it to look like a "color" image.
• Filling any area with a single color does not look good, period. If that worked, everyone would be a master at coloring.
• Color choices are extremely important. Do a little research for the time period the image was taken. What colors were in fashion? Did men all wear red/pink ties? Was flouresent pink clothing available? Don't add any random color just for the sake of adding color. Put some serious thought into your color choices.
• Using "overlay", extreme contrast, and other similar techniques, are not appropriate methods for manipulating color. Your image has lost all of the detail in the shadows. If you ruin the quality of the original image in your process, what it the point?
• Every pixel needs attention. It's all about the fine details. Going back to the statement I quoted, if you don't feel like putting in the work, don't expect to get decent results. That said, wouldn't it be of more value to ask for a critique of a serious effort?

Thanks Gary,
I know it seems like the 'final' version was posted pretty quickly, but i spent about 12 hours that day staring at the monitor trying to incorporate everyone's suggestions, colored about a third of the bricks different hue, desaturated bride and grooms faces except brides cheeks, desaturated shadowed half of purple lady, burnt kids a little more, tried to darken the lighter patches of brickwork and lighten the top parts, healing tool for the patchy pavement, burnt the man sitting down hands 'still gleaming i know' , the white patch on the old boys jacket, and i think a fair bit of selective lightening and darkening on the pavement.
Oh and desaturated the green frosted glass thanks to the hard man I've got here at work who came past every 10 Min's and said "why is there a football field in the house" and "which one's Maggie and which one's Bart!

So your right about the masking, thought about that myself after the fact, already overworked in my opinion, When i look at real photo's taken from this sort of range in color i don't see them this colorful, it's almost to me that when colorizing you have to, not only colorize but enhance the colors that might have been seen that day, all about personal taste i suppose.

Dead right about the contrasting though, Fixing a few rips in a photo is one thing but knowing what makes a good photo is where you should probably start in this game i reckon.
Anyway i have learned a little bit about what people like and dislike about colorization and would still like to know about 'photoexorsism' if someone could show me an example of what they would do with the kids especially, i would love to see it and hear how they went about it.

Thanks again Gary for the encouragement.

Vikki, OUCH!
The title really was meant as a bit of a lark, Just to get you guys to have a look, and hopefully learn from what you all picked, I hope everyone would be a little more savage on someone who really thought they were that good, and i meant no offense by what i said, just meant that i have a serious lack of photo's to have a go at, other than the challenge photo's at the moment.
I did see the skin colorization tutorial that you pointed out, which has as i recall a nice clear photo to work with and was going to start with that.
And the lazy comment was "off the cuff" i didn't color the stuff that i tried to leave black and white because i thoght it felt right for suits and hats and shoes to leave em that way.
Sorry mate didn't mean to offend.

toe, no offense taken! I actually think you're thread title was a great way to get noticed.
Was I too harsh? Please excuse my critique "style", but I see no value in a critique if it doesn't offer some critical analysis. If you had posted this in a "gallery", I would not have posted in the same manner.

Regarding the gray clothing...even gray has some color cast to it, and it really looks better when colored.

If you'd like to practice on better quality photos, you might look here:
http://historyforkids.utah.gov/fun_and_games/photos/beforecolorfilm.html
Although, as I said earlier, it's really not about having quality images.

Thanks again Gary for the encouragement.

You're welcome.As a strictly 3rd rate colourer myself, I appreciate that you've probably worked very hard on this.

Listening to "pros" like Vicky is the way to go, she's much more experienced and talented with a colour palette than I'll ever be (or want to be :) ). I think as well as all the attributes she suggested in her earlier post she forgot to add one that in my opinion is essential (because she has it and probably doesn't appreciate that not everyone else has), and that's an eye for colour.

Some people see colour better than others, and pick up subtle changes in tone and shade that we of lesser ability just fail to see. I'm not sure whether that ability is inborn or can be learnt.

Anyway, good luck with your picture and keep practising and learning, nothing good ever came easy.

ViKKi,
No not too harsh, like i said, i thought everyone would have ripped into me over this one, I did a bit of searching this morning for colorization tutorials and came across your power of masking tutorial, which i found helped me understand the subject more and looks a very good way to repair the smaller things in damaged photo's and i realize it has far more uses then just that.
It is very early days for me with photoshop, I actually used photodeluxe for this, Which has no masking ability that i know of and no history either, So it's all a one shot deal with the eraser and to fix any inaccuracies just means scrap the layer and do it again, I think i was up to layer 24 in the end, As you can imagine I'm very excited about being able to fix things there and then with this masking ability and all the other little things I've had a quick look at history brush, sponge tool etc.

I also came across a tip you gave to someone else that i thought was brilliant! To try turning a color image to black and white and then bring it back, What an awesome way to teach yourself the level of detail that it takes to make it look realistic.

It would be fantastic to have all those ideas on not only how to colorize but how to be realistic about it, in one place, maybe a tutorial for the future? :)

Anyway i was impressed that you even had a look at my image and you're comments are taken on board, I really do want to learn to be better at this so thank you for your link, theres enough there to keep me busy for a while and learning how to get the job done with PS.

See you in a year. :)

Gary,
Couldn't agree more about the eye for color comment, as i said above the idea of turning color to black and white and then back would go a long way to helping there though i reckon, and might well be a good place to start for me, It would be very easy to see how you were going as you went. Got to try and wrap my head around photoshop now, seems like it'll be very powerful and forgiving once you know how to wield it properly.

The learning curve for PS is always pretty steep at first, and there's almost always something it can do that you weren't aware of.

However, though at times it's not always the most intuitive of programmes, it is without doubt one of the most versatile and will payback in spades any effort you make to learn it.

Just remember with PS that there's usually a bundle of ways for you to do the same thing and which one you use will be as much about personal preference as it is about achieving a desired effect.

Have fun.

I like it.
In fact you did a very good job.

Thanks Kombizz,
Ive been trying to tell these guys the same thing for a week now, "it's a masterpiece" if it was'nt for you and Gary i reckon id be swinging by now. :)

Seriously though! thanks mate for the compliment! "you can only av a go"!

Its not just good, its the best I've ever seen and probably the best I'll ever be likely to see.

wrong in this world there would always be someone that can do better no matter how good you are. i've seen others just like her's search the web you will soon find out.

cheers

sergio