This picture was cut into layers, each repensenting a color. Then each layer was colored. After merging layers, my wife finished the picture. Around 10 hours for me to do the cutting and 10 hours for my wife to color. This is the orignal, the finished picture to follow next.

Original

FINISHED PICTURE

Any one have any ideas as to how to get the same or better results, Faster?

Vernon, what image editing software are you using? Photoshop? Some other? Version? Knowing that will help us tailor our answers to your situation.

Thanks, Jeanie

I use Photoshop 7.

Your finished image has a "painted" quality. Was that your intention?

My intention is to make as realistic a picture as possible. As thought it was photographed yesterday.

Vernon,

When you say that you cut each piece apart, do you mean that you use the lasso tool to select each piece - then copy to a new document? I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, but you shouldn't need to do this. You mentioned to me in a PM that you don't use layers in your process. I think you will want to start usig them as it will give you much more flexibility and you won't have to cut each piece apart. Are you familiar with using layers (and layer masks) at all?

I don't know if it will help, but a while back I wrote up a fairly detailed description of the process I used for my first colorization:
Colorization thread (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=556)
I used a slightly different proess of selecting now, but the idea remains the same. If the description in that thread makes sense to you, then I will further describe the process I use now for selecting. If you have questions about that thread, please ask! It'll be easier to describe what I do now if you understand what is in that thread.

And yes, using layers should be faster than what you are currently doing - if I correctly understand what you're describing.

Jeanie

Vernon, I think you're going about it the hard (and long) way.
There are several ways to colorize. If you do a search on the net (or here) you should find quite a few.
My current favorite is this way:
Coloring Tutorial (http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161015)
If you look at my gallery here, you can see some examples of how it turns out.

Thanks for that link Vikki. I was looking for a tutorial and couldn't find it!

Jeanie

Jeanie,
I do use layers, as stated above,someof these pictures were taken in the 1800's and it is hard to find the object. As with my first post everthing is about the same color. I dont under stand how colorizing would help. As shown by " mead's " posted reply.
I hope to find a way to repair these bad pictures faster or at least a way to find the edges of these objects, that said I will look at your colorizing link.
Peace,
Vernon

Hi Vernon,

Sorry about not remembering your first post. I replied without rereading everything - I'm just trying to do too many things at once. :(

OK, when colorizing an old photo, the first step is to restore it - THEN colorize it. You should not have to copy every piece to a new layer to restore. That's not to say you won't use layers in the restoration process, just that you don't need to have separate parts of the photo on separate layers to restore. Specifically for this photo, I would start by duplicating the background layer and setting the blending mode to multiply. Then using a layer mask to remove from areas that don't need help - and adjusting the opacity. That will help build up the faded areas and hopefully make it easier to find the object.

Once you've got a good B&W image, then you can start colorizing. I use a separate layer for each color (set to either soft light or color blending mode) and a layer mask to color only the parts of the image I want to be that color. The layer masks are useful because if I find that I need to adjust the "seams between color", I only need to adjust the layer masks. The link that Vikki provided is a good one with a different technique, so I'd recommend looking at that as well.

OK, gotta run. I'll be back later tonight. Does that help or just confuse the issue?

Jeanie

Jeanie,
I can understand what you are saying, but I have never found that it would work for me, on a picture like this. Is there a chance that someone could try to correct this picture. I have just started another similiar picture that I could load before showing my results, if that would be better?
Peace,
Vernon

Vernon,

If you've just started to work on the photo, yes, it might be good to upload it and see what others can come up with (and of course share the process used.)

Jeanie

Vernon
I played with colorizing some time ago. you were saying you wanted it to look real... well I did too.. But well that talented I'm not.... this was as close as I came and it was so long ago that details of how I did it are vague.

I did use a few layers.... a natural blue sky layer behind to erase to.. as well as the beautiful girl whom I cut out a clone of... (duplicate layer with all else erased).This allowed me to more easily paint behind her.

I did the B&W restoration first for sure then just set back with your paint brush set on "color" and have at it.....

since then someone suggested using a photo with the desired colors as a pallet.... for sure i'd try that next time...

RonDon

Thank you for your help.
Vernon