I am working on a picture of my wife and her sister when they were young. My wife thought the picture was a sepia because of the color. I had to inform her that no it was a B&W that yellowed. Normally if I was going to just restore the picture I would simply use the channel mixer and convert it to grey.

That would be too easy! Now she wants me to restore it and colorize it so we can give it to her sister as a Christmas present. Now it's getting complicated. I assume that I will have to deal with the yellowed portions of the image before I can attempt to begin the colorization? I've been practicing with Jak's tutorial so I am not afraid to tackle the colorization. It's the yellowing in about 1/3 of the picture that I don't know what to do with. If the whole image was yellowed it might be easier. I have no problems selecting and creating a mask only in the yellowed area, i've been practicing, but what do I do to it after the selection?

Hi Kevin,

You could just desaturate the image, or if you find one channel that looks better than the others, you could use the channel mixer, then choose monochrome. You will still be in RGB, and you could add a little sepia if you wanted before coloring it. This sometimes makes the skintones look better. If you need more help, just yell. Good luck.

Ed

Ed's point about the sepia layer before colorizing is a good tip -- some of our other members swear by it. Kevin, you could run a Hue/Sat adjustment layer on the selected area to lower the saturation and the lightness a bit before desaturating it to keep the tones matching better in the desaturated image. The area that is yellowed the most will show up in the grayscale, although not as noticeable. I tried Selective Color, Levels, Color Balance layers on the selection also, but think the Hue/Sat might work better for you. I must admit my eyes are not very good at seeing these slight color gradations -- I had to use the Info palette to see the differences - which show there quite distinctly. You have a good point about correcting the image before starting the colorization.

Most importantly -- Beautiful young ladies, both of them! This will make a very lovely present -- with a copy to your wife, I hope. ;)

Hi Ed and CJ. Thanks for the tips on desaturate. I tried a quick test and it will work just fine, exactly what I needed to know. If I combine the two I think it will come out just right. It will be a lot of work but it will be worth it, I think they will both be happy with the end product. I'll get a lot of help with the proper colors to make everything too. Their mother still has those dresses!

Guess I should have posted this in the tips forum. I have a couple of more questions. I tried to select the face and deselect the lips and eyes but wasn't sucessful. Is there a way to do this or will I have to select and change those after completing the face? I tried to erase the fill color on the lips and was told I couldn't do that because "the target channels do not cover the composite". I guess I will have to color fill each feature seperately?

Thanks in advance.

Kevin,

I'm not sure this is the best way, but here's what I'd do.

Duplicate the layer

Pick a lip color, then paint the lips only. You don't have to be extra careful here because you can reverse any errors. This will look very bad -- don't worry.

Change the blending mode to "color" for that layer. Reduce the opacity of the layer until it looks good. When you are *totally* satisfied, flatten the image.

Repeat the above procedure, but pick different areas to color. If you should happen to get outside the area you wanted to color, just use a layer mask, then paint with black to erase the unwanted part. Go too far? Paint with white to regain what you erased. If this isn't clear, just let us know.

Ed

Kevin,
I know you already figured out how to get rid of the yellow, but wanted to add this comment. I looked at the individual RGB channels and noticed that the blue channel did not seem to show any of the staining at all. And, because the photo is in good shape aside from the staining, I chose to use just the blue channel. (Sometimes the blue channel also includes a lot of noise or damage, but it doesn't seem to in this case.) The blue channel was fairly dark, so I used the Levels highlight slider as well as a simple curve to lighten it. I've attached the grayscale result - which you can then apply a sepia tone to and start colorizing.

To answer your questions on colorizing... You can remove a selected area (such as the eyes or lips) by holding down the Alt key while you use a selection tool. (Alt = SUBTRACT when using selection tools. Shift = ADD with selection tools.)

I'm not sure what method you're using for colorizing, but I highly recommend that you put each color on its own layer. This will allow you ultimate flexibility when you need to tweak the colors at the end (based on feedback from your wife. ;) ) You can use a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer on each color layer (if needed) to tweak the colors however you need to.

I'm not sure what the target channels do not cover the composite means, but I would fill each color separately anyway. I'll see if I can decipher that message in any case. Can't say I've seen it before.

Jeanie

Hi Kevin,

A good way to do this, if I understand what you're getting at here, is to use quick mask. Once you've made your broad selection, save it in it's own alpha channel for safe keeping. Then activate the selection by Ctrl+clicking the alpha channel. Then click the quick mask button on the bottom right of the tools pallette. (I prefer to invert the selection before going into quick mask mode at this point for what's to follow here, but that's a matter of comfort).
In quick mask mode you'll see the ruby colour mask. From here you can paint "in" or "away" various parts of what will be (or won't be) included in the selection. This should be done with a soft brush at a low opacity, using the default colours black & white, painting in and around areas such as mouth, eyes, hairline, etc. Black will paint "on" the red ruby mask, while white will paint "away" the red ruby mask. Ultimately this will change the shape of your selection weh you exit quick mask. You can smudge this red mask, blur it, filter it, whatever you want.

When you exit quick mask it will make a new selection based on these changes. This strategy is especially good for the type of thing you're talking about here, such as soft edges around 'soft parts', such as lips for colourizing. This way you don't end up with ugly harsh transitions.
There are several other ways to go about this, but in this case this one might be the best. It's much easier done than said tho.

Mig

I also played around with it a little. Like Jeanie, I found the blue channel to be best. I used 90% blue and 36% green in the channel mixer, set for monochrome. The extra percentage above 100% added contrast, which seemed pretty good to me. You'll find there are dozens of ways to get what you want. You just have to play around for a while. :)

Ed

All I can say is Wow. You guys are great! I feel so guilty getting all this help, hopefully soon I will be able to return the favor somehow. Jeanie and Mig, you supplied the missing link in my selection problems. Those were exactly the tips I needed to hear. Ed thanks again.

This should keep me busy for a while. This will be another good technique to get under my belt. You guys are really helping me shorten the learning curve.

Just received an e-mail from B&H that my Graphire2 shipped today. Should have it on thursday. Can't wait to tackle that new toy.

Can't wait to tackle that new toy. -- Kevin

Great timing -- it can help you finish your sister-in-law's present!

Kevin -- we all are on the receiving end some of the time, especially at the beginning. You already give back in the other areas of your expertise (computers, etc.) and will be helping with retouch/restoration whenever you can.


Jeannie -- I'm glad you caught the blue channel solution -- I thought it looked pretty good, but I didn't trust my eyes.

Just checking in with you, Kevin..... How much up to speed are you with that "new Toy?" Xmas came early for you!

Used your pix to practice that new pencil technique, am sending it as a back up:) But I know you won't need it, do show us when you finish...Kevin

Hi Goldcoin, I'm not very up to speed with the Graphire2 yet. I received it yesterday and have used it for some of the final corrections to this pic. I will need much more practice before I will be very productive with it but I can see it's potential.

I have uploaded the latest edited copy of the picture. I want honest comments about what you guys think. The dress isn't quite finished, I am waiting on the Mother-in-law to provide more info on the dresses. She did say that the rim of the collars has a pink border. I don't think that it will be possible to restore that because of the deteration of the detail near the front of the collars. The sides are OK but near the front the border seems to blend in with the rest of the collar.

The background color was arbitrary. I'm not sure if this is the best color but it was my first choice. This project was made much easier with the hair and skin color patches available in Jak's tutorial.

Kevin,

I think this is coming along very nicely!! I love the hair on both girls! :bigthmb: This is such a great photo!

The face skin tones look a little flat to me - more like they are "wax" than "alive". I tried playing with a Hue/Saturation layer and discovered that I like the skin tones better if I set the Red channel to -9/+33/0 and the Yellow channel to -2/+12/0. (Make sure the dresses aren't selected for that adjustment though - I like that color as it is.)

Also, the blue is fine, but I would tone it down a bit. In the same Hue/Sat adjustment layer I tried -7/-33/0 and liked that a bit more b/c it didn't overpower the girls.

The only other comment is that it appears that the original stain was on the left dress. It still shows through a bit here as the pink looks "dirty" to me over most of the dress. Any chance you could lighten that area just slightly using the dodge tool? (Work on the underlying B&W image, not the color.)

This is a fantastic present!! :D

Jeanie

Kevin,

You really come around fast! :thumbsup: I think Jeanie hit all the right spots. The skintones were the only things that were readily apparent to me. But she is right on all counts. Super work! Congrats!

Ed

Thanks guys, I agree. Now back to work.

Well, I didn't have much luck adjusting the hue on the faces. Just didn't hold my mouth right I guess. I did however make a cosmetic addition of slight rosey cheeks. This seems to add some life to the faces. I dodged the bodice as carefully as I could, had to back off several times after overdoing it. I need more time with the dodge tool, it's very touchy and probably as unpredictible as the clone stamp at times.

I toned down the background as you suggested.

I would like to have cleaned the upper portion of the dress some more but didn't get good results with the dodge tool. It seems that there is so little data in some areas that any dodging at all blows it out. So what I ended up doing is just a simple color fill with white.

I hope this is closer to being right than it was a few hours ago.

Kevin,

There's "always more than one way in Photoshop" as our fearless leader has reminded us from time to time, so consider this when the Dodge tool isn't working well.

Duplicate the working layer -- set layer blend mode to Screen

In this case, with your original image submitted above, it would really blow out the highlights and look horrible!

But THEN add a layer mask - set to HIDE ALL - and the image goes back to looking normal. NOW you can paint on the mask with WHITE (use a lower opacity so you can add in just the amount you want) in just those areas that you want to lighten - you can lighten the bodice, add highlights to hair - probably not necessary - their hair is lovely, but just so you know what it can do. Just another wonderful way that PShop lets us make things look like they should!

Lovely picture...must be fun to colorize! Suggestions:

1. Get rid of the gray by the girl's ear...must have missed it in coloring the face.

2. Wife's hair is a bit dark in the shadows and will most likely print black...depending on your printer settings of course.

3. Girl's hair has greenish cast on my monitor.

4. Skin tones look nice with the rosy cheeks added, but faces need some more saturation based on what I see on my screen.

Of course all monitors show things a bit differently and all printers handle colors a bit differently so I'm sure you will work it all out in the printing.

Nice project. :)

Phyllis

Hi Phyllis and CJ, thank you for your input. You guys here at this forum have all been so helpful on this project. I have learned a lot of really useful techniques.

I believe that I am going to start over on this restoration. I should have done all of the restoration and tonal corrections prior to the colorization. I guess I was so eager to tackle this job that I skipped ahead too soon. Besides this will give me more practice and the finished product will be better than what I have now. I wont really have to start completely from scratch as I have saved many different copies along the way. I will just go back prior to the colorization and get all the corrections finished and redo the colorization steps with a much cleaner image.

I will post the new finished product after I finish it. Thanks again.

I finally got past the windows problems and was able to resume this project. I think I am almost through with this image. The results were much better when I did all the tonal correctins before starting the colorization. I believe that the bodice area looks more even now, I even colorized the pipeing around the collars. The top of the dresses was hard to get as white as I wanted but it is a lot better than the first attempt. I added a second color fil layer and set it to screen and adjusted the opacity to get a lot more whiteness than with out it.

I like the skin colors mush better but still need more experience when comes to facial makeup.

Let me know what you think.

Kevin, you've done a really good job! Starting over is hard to bear sometimes, but I've (often) had to do it, and it truly worked well with this image. Adding that piping must have given you some practice with that new tablet! :) Nice touch!!

Kudos Kevin! Nice work. Glad to hear got the Windows problems out of the way too..

Ed

Hi CJ & Ed, thanks so much for the kind words. I have a lot of time in this one but I learned a lot that will help me later on. I hate to admit it but I moused the piping. I will spend more time with the tablet later on and I should be able to improve my acuracy with it over the mouse. I did spend some time with the tablet trying some freehand drawing and was surprised at what I could do. I am certainly no artist but the Graphire2 should help me with things like the collar piping.

Ed the Windows problems are postponed until I have time to deal with it. Right now it's stable but I know the problem is lurking in the background waiting to pounce on me again. I think I will be able to get by until the upgrade.

Kevin you did a great job but Jenisa is right , but it easly corrected with your own photo. all you have to do is adjust in curves like an s make it lighter in the middle of section line got up on it an adjust there and down below it an adjust it there.

See your photo adjusted that way.

The only thing I would do is the top of your wife hair, clone out the protrusions and you have a winner.

This is a really a lovely photo, and you did a wonderful job on the coloring.
My only suggestion would be to add some color to the blouses. Of course this is a personal preference, but it appears to be unfinished because it is still gray, and the rest of the photo has color. Although one would think a white blouse would not need color, most often it does reflect some color (and sometimes reflects colors from surrounding areas). Perhaps a very light and soft cream color, would add just enough color.
Vikki

This is a really a lovely photo, and you did a wonderful job on the coloring.
My only suggestion would be to add some color to the blouses. Of course this is a personal preference, but it appears to be unfinished because it is still gray, and the rest of the photo has color. Although one would think a white blouse would not need color, most often it does reflect some color (and sometimes reflects colors from surrounding areas). Perhaps a very light and soft cream color, would add just enough color.
Vikki

Thanks Phili1 and Vikki for your suggestions. I have made additional enhancements. Vikki I was able to brighten the blouses quite a bit more without blowing the detail out. I had thought I was as far as I could go but a simple brightness/contrast adjustment was just what it needed, I get 252 252 252 in the highlights now.

I also cloned the hairline to eliminate the stray wisps of hair and I also cleaned up the dress/bodice junction. I wonder if I will ever get through with this one.

OK, here is the final draft.

Hi Kevin. You did a super job. I have a tendebcy to like it a little lighter, so I down loaded it and did a comparison and I like the lighting you picked, it has a softer effect on the eyes and face. Your wife picture kind of reminds me of my wifes at that age. NIce looking family. Again just a great job. I just realized that your sister in law looks like Shirley Temple, an actress among us.

Hi Phili1, thanks for your comment. Actually my wife Cindy is the younger of the two. She was a cotton top when she was very young and her hair gradually darkened to match her sisters when in her teens.

I will have to get to printing now. I have worked on several restorations for Christmas presents and haven't printed any of them yet. Thanks again.

Kevin, This turned out great! You should be really proud of your results!

Jeanie

Thanks Jeanie.