Well hi to everyone, i have just started out in the restoration game having decided to create a family tree and having been struggling with some old family pictures - and photocopies at that !!

Here's the work so far (http://www.wanbridge.net/leetree/)

And now i have found this forum great just what i have been looking for, i shall be picking plenty of brains !!

Now for some input :)

Whilst working on the restoration i found an excellent piece of software for colorization, now i know photoshop does this but man is it laborious !!

Here's the easy way (http://www.black-and-white-to-color.com)

You can see the resuluts of my labours on the family pics but as these were not perfect originals the result is not as good as i wanted, however here is some more work i have done with better starting images :

Slightly better !! (http://www.wanbridge.net/BM/)

some of the b/w oics i simply used from the s/w's site and did as good if not better job than them !! but my favorite is the RAT Pack i used muddy water to color sammy davis !!

Be warned this software is addictive !!

Interesting program, I downloaded the trial version found it a little clumsy. I would like to have been able to save the image so that I could have refined it in photoshop but that option was not available in the trial. There is nothing there that can't be done in photoshop. It needs some selection tools and I would like a larger work area, the control panel takes up too much space. I think it's more for a beginner than most people in these forums and it's a little expensive for me.
Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with the program and I'm sure some would find it useful. These opinions are mine alone and do not reflect on others at Retouchpro.

well i beg to disagree, take a standard b/w white image say one from my work at www.wanbridge.net/BM and try to color it i photoshop, try the ghandi with the carpet that should be fun. The time and hassle spent with the layers and lasso tool, the problems getting skin tones and hue it is just to cumbersome to use photoshop for this. blackmagic handles the carpet in a single stroke, the skin tones are a oiece of cake as the program auto adjusts the hue and tonning

i agree with you on a larger work area, and i think an eye dropper would be good, i think you can get rid of most of the panel by draging thir windows and you can zoom in to the image you are working on and work with the zoomed image live

have a look at the castle scene, all the greenery, how long would that take you in photoshop ? i did the image in BM in about 20 mins

I think PS is great for what it does and i really need it for the restoration work but as far as the coloring goes give me BM any day, by the time i finish coloring i PS my descendants will be coloring me !!!

The zoom tool is clumsy as it opens up in another window, I would prefer to zoom the whole image in the original window as photoshop does. I wasn't able to get rid of the control panel by doing as you suggest. Although I was able to make it a little larger, but stil not as large as I would like. Maybe there should be more options available.

As I said purely my opinion, others may think differently and probably will.

Hi Paul,

Welcome aboard our little community ship. :) If you're just starting into restoration, you've come to the right place.
The home edition seems quite limited, and I doubt I'd be interested in that. The other two versions seem to have a pretty hefty price tag, especially for someone who would only use it for a hobby. I didn't download the trial version because of that. Are you in some way connected with the software? It sure sounds like a sales pitch. :)

Ed

It seems slightly disingenuous to say the least to advertise the product on the board this way - it is not as if you are unconnected to the product is it? Saying that you "found" this piece of software is also misleading, I see from the source code of the site that you had a hand in coding it. Coincedence?

You beat me to it Mike. The whole thread sounded too soft sell to me. Especially when "look at the work I did" sends you to the grace kelly/ratpack examples first.
Debbie

I am reserve moderator at the Applied Color Theory group - which has these requirements of membership (among others):

===

'ADVERTISING and COMMERCIAL POSTS

Nobody wants this to become an advertising list, but In practice it is difficult to draw a fine line between a comment and a product plug. Members are requested to use restraint and to ask themselves whether what they are posting is something that a significant number of readers would be interested
in. That said, brief plugs are permitted. Similarly, new product
announcements are permitted, but the preferred form is to announce briefly and indicate to the list members where further information is available.

Repeated commercial posts are prohibited. Also, there will be little to no tolerance for commercial posts from persons who are not otherwise participating in the list. This includes "public service announcements" or posts promoting private websites.

Unnecessarily lengthy signature lines that advertise services are discouraged.'

and further

'CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Members are entitled to know if posters have commercial affiliations that might affect their views as to the products and topics they post about. If you have such an affiliation, you are expected to disclose it. This doesn't mean in every post, but often enough so that the readers will be in no doubt
as to what your biases might be. For the purpose of this list, if you're writing about a certain product, and you've accepted money from that company within the last five years, that's something that should be disclosed.'

===

Stephen Marsh.

Of course, you can also discuss all other programs, as well.

Can you believe this guy?!

I just received this e-mail this morning from Paul Selhi wanting me to link exchange with him. Can you believe this guy came on this forum trying to sell us his software!

Here is the e-mail:

Hi,

I visited your website www.perfectpictureimaging.ca today

As i am building up a specialist link database i have included your
site in my links list as i think it would be of interest to my visitors


I think our sites share a lot in common and it would be a good idea to
exchange links


I hope you don't mind me adding your website's listing to my link
directory:

http://www.black-and-white-to-color.com/links/themeindex.html.

The listing is in the Photographic Services theme at this page:

http://www.black-and-white-to-color.com/links/photographicservices.html.

My website is:

www.black-and-white-to-color.com

So what is BlackMagic ?

If you've ever tried to colorize black and white images with photoshop
or for that matter any graphics program you know it can be time
consuming and the results are rarely satisfactory, especially skin tones

Well now you can save yourself hours with BlackMagic.

I think you will be amazed at the simplicity of this program and yet
the results are incredibly sophisticated

There is honestly NOTHING out there to compare with the performance of
this software when it comes to colorizing black and white or even sepia
images

Need to colorize a complex object like a carpet ? this could take days
with photoshop, black magic will do it in minutes, even a child could
use it to give results that a professional graphic artist would be proud
of

The benefits of exchanging links

As you are probably aware the number of sites that link to your web
site
greatly enhances your search engine rankings, you'll see many sites
offering to trade links but when you actually look at your listing is
it pointing
to your site or to their database ?

I am setting my link to you so that it shows as your site and thus is
listed by the search engines as another link to your site and not some
obscure
database

And what do i get from this ? Well your listing enhances my site and
adds
value however i am also looking for a link back, i think that's a
pretty
fair request !!
Once a link back to my site is in place i will enhance your listing
with a
nice shiny star !! and improve your placement in the listings

If you do place a link back could you point it to
www.black-and-white-to-color.com

Please let me know if you would like your site moved to a different
category, removed or there is any way you feel we can work more closely
together


Regards,
Paul Selhi
paulselhi@black-and-white-to-color.com

www.black-and-white-to-color.com

Info to add my website's link to your website:

http://www.black-and-white-to-color.com/linkinfo/linkinfo.html


..

thanks for the plug ;)

Paul, the people here aren't stupid and they won't fall for your tricks.

I recieved the same email.

Paul, I believe that simply announcing your software in the appropriate forum would be much more effective than attempting to decieve people. The folks here would be much more receptive to that.

His only posts since joining have been to advertise (surreptitiously) his product. Let's not help him do it by continuing this thread. Let it die now.

If he ever is serious about wanting to join a forum discussion, he can jump into another thread -- without benefit of sales pitch.