Hi,

I am trying to improve and colourise this image. It is of my Nan, my Mum (aged 13) on right and her sister (aged 11). It was taken at Ramsgate, England, in 1945. The family lived in a heavily bombed part of London during the war, and though my Grandad was still away fighting Hitler, my Nan decided to take the children away for a day at the seaside - the first time they had been "out" since before the bombing.

This is a special photo to me because it's the only one I have of the three together; my Nan is now dead and my Mum very Ill in her seventies. It's also a sad photo too because It makes me wish I knew more about my Mum's childhood and her growing up - she can't remember much of those times these days.

Well, I am pleased with what I have done, so far, but the ground and buildings are proving to be a problem. I can't get any colour to the ground - It's not tarmac or sand, probably a fine pale crumbly granite or chalk?, with the beach off to the left, I assume. Should I just add a pale brown tone to the buildings? The sky was washed-out, so I did my best to add one, and I'm sort of happy with it.

The colour of the cloathing was a guess. I picked what I thought looked alright, and tried to keep the feel of the period.

I would be happy with any thoughts. I am working at 1024 pixels, but here's 600 pixel before and "so far" images if you'd like to take a look. I hope our gamma is similar.

Thanks,
Les

Hi Les,

Very nice job!!! :happy:

Hope you don't mind... I prefer working on the original but tried to reproduce the colours of your choice .... (mind you...colorizing isn't really my cup of tea!!! :( )

I'm in a bit of a hurry right now, but, if you think my choice of background colours is acceptable, I'll write a more detailed explanation.

:wavey:

What a great project.
I can't put my finger on it, but it looks to me as if the contrast is too high, causing the people to look "placed" in the image.
Perhaps it's the bright sky. If I were coloring this, I would probably leave it drab, almost blue/gray as a brighter color would change the lighting of the scene. A tip for coloring the buildings and backgrounds is to find some similar photos to use as a color reference.
If you don't mind, I'd love to color this, if I could get the full size.

Flora,

The colour is just about right for the promenade ... they used to use a sort of tarmac but with lots of small light coloured chippings ... very hardwearing. The overall effect was a pale grey. Pavements done in the 40's and 50's were mainly that colour.

Hope this helps
Wendy

Hi Vikki,

...boy, am I glad when you 'jump' in for colorizing requests!!!! :D :D :D

I tried about 50 variations of sky colour for this picture ..... I liked none of them.. somehow it always looked as if the people were 'placed' in the image as you pointed out .... For the same reason, it was also difficult to fine-tune the sharpening in this image....

I do hope Les will post the full size ....

Hi WendyW,

...Thank you so much for the information!! :pleased:

I actually did a research in Internet to see if I could get a hint of what the colours could be.... I've been to Brighton (UK) and noticed that most of the big hotels or palaces on the Sea Front are either white or "yellowish" ... I tried to reproduce the latter as the white did seem fake ....

:wavey:

Flora,

Try http://www.tourism.thanet.gov.uk/pages/beach_list.aspx#ramsgate
scroll down and the photograph of West Bay shows the promenade.

The only seafront buildings I could find were at
and http://www.tourism.thanet.gov.uk/pages/where_to_stay.aspx

In the photograph the people are wearing cardigans etc .. that usually means the sky is dull and grey.

Glad to be of help :)

Wendy

I did some coloring on this, but I'm not entirely happy with the background. I still think the sky would be gray, but I could be wrong. Anyway, this is what I ended up with.

Vikki,

I'm pretty sure the sky should be gray .... as Wendy says, the people in the picture are wearing cardigans and it surely seems windy!!! Besides, a blue sky as I painted, is rather rare in the UK!!! :o: ...

I think you got colours and 'feeling' absolutely right!! I just love it.

WendyW,

Thanks again for your help!!

:wavey:

Flora, blue skies in the UK aren't rather rare, they're practically non-existant.
At least thats the rumour we spread to keep people away. (What do you mean Xenophobic).