I only recently found this awesome site, and this is my first post...so greetings to everyone! :wavey: Although I've done several restorations for my wife's genealogical consulting, this is my first attempt at colorizing so I am very much a beginner. Any constructive criticism would be very much appreciated! My hope is to learn colorization well enough to offer this as an additional service.

I used PaintShop Pro 9, starting with some minor restoration then using the techniques described in a tutorial (http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161015&page=1) suggested in this forum (thanks for the tip, Flora!). I realize many of you use Photoshop but I was able to easily apply the same methods with PSP9. What I liked most about this technique is the use of masks to control the application of color. It is quite forgiving, allowing you to experiment easily to get the desired results.

The original is a photo of my mother as a girl. Please give me feedback on any improvements so I can make mom proud :grin:

- Kurt

Wow you really did a great job! The skin tones are great

I think you did an excellent job for the first time colorizing. I'm looking at this on a monitor (my wife's) that hasn't been calibrated in quite a while, so what I'm seeing might be wrong. The skintones look a little on the green side to me. Everything else looks great! Here (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7896&highlight=skintones) is a thread that has a file attached for Bruce's skintones. It comes in very handy at times, and it's worth downloading. Look for my post, which is about the 4th or 5th post down in the thread. Welcome to RP to both of you!!

Ed

Ed, I'm not seeing the green in the skintones on my screen - but you raise an excellent point. I did this on my laptop, and now I'm thinking I should've viewed it on a calibrated monitor, which I'll do asap. Thanks for the comments and the link to the skintones chart - I've added it to my 'toolkit'.

Dakota, thank you for your encouraging comments!

Ditto the greens.

Other than that, you did an excellent job on a difficult subject. The dress is especially well done. Good work.

Genealogy? Me too! Keep up the research!

Janet

Does that mean you see the green cast, or not? Maybe we should start up a genealogy forum here. It has caught my interest too!

Ed

Hi Kurt!

Pretty good job! If you are going to be doing quite a bit of this type of work, a highly recommended book is Katrin Eismann's Photoshop Restoration and Retouching. To be honest, I haven't a clue how to get good skin tones in RGB and always change this task to CMYK. I believe you can do this in Paint Shop Pro. In Eismann's book, she recommends equal values of Yellow and Magenta and very little Cyan for Caucasian babies and young children. You might want to try 7, 40, 40, 0 or if sticking to RGB try 215,171, 142. That should eliminate the yellowish/green cast.

Cheers
Dave

Ed, Janet, Dave...

Thanks so much for the feedback! Following your suggestions, I created a new version by reducing the yellow to eliminate the green cast, which I believe is better. Please let me know if you think this is an improvement, or if other adjustments are needed.

Dave, I've seen recommendations for Katrin Eismann's book elsewhere on RP - I'll certainly be adding it to my library. Thanks for the tip!

- Kurt

Keep in mind too that the shoes and collar should be white or a least high equal values of R,G & B.

Cheers
Dave

I haven't the faintest idea on how to colourize, but to me that looks fantastic. Great job!

Hello Kurt,

Today I'm using a monitor that is more correct. The skintones in the face look great! But I think if you take a reading from them to compare with the legs, you'll see a difference (I didn't do that). The color cast looks like it remains a little in that area, and maybe a little less on the arms.

Ed

So today it's back to work, and I'm able to look at this for the first time on a CRT monitor. Wow - what a difference! :surprise: It is very easy to see the green cast in the first version. Overall, the image appears muddier and less bright than when viewed with my laptop's LCD display (which I've always been very happy with).

I checked the gamma calibration of the monitor, and it seems to be right on. Guess I need to do a gamma correction for my laptop display - although it seems I have less control over this than with a monitor. Does anyone know if it is even feasible to accurately calibrate a TFT LCD display for this kind of thing? May be a topic I should put in a different forum....

Good point on the whites Dave - I was concerned about making the whites unnaturally bright, but now I can see there's room for improvement there too.

Thanks for all your help,
- Kurt

Nice work, I like the color choice on the dress. Did you consider using a layer for the collar, making it white lace ? The eyes seem to jump off the screen a bit too much and appear almost purple. All in all.....good work.

mark,

Welcome to RP! Great job for your first time. I have nothing more to add that hasn't already been said.

As for your laptop monitor though, I know from experience that they always make things appear on the cyan/blue side and no, there isn't anyway to correct that that I have ever heard of. It has something to do with the LCD-I read ina magazine once that LCD monitors are the WORST for trying to do this type of work. My only suggestion is try to find out how "off" the monitor is so you can always correct for that by adding more magenta or red or whatever it takes. It will probably look wrong on your laptop but should look great on calibrated monitors.

Good luck!

-Mindy

Mark, Mindy - thanks for the comments. I noticed the eye color problem too while viewing it on the CRT.

Mindy, I've been doing some research on the CRT vs. LCD question (found a little more info in the Hardware forum) and you're right -- it just isn't practical to do this properly with an LCD display. My plan now is to buy a CRT monitor, calibrate it, and take another crack at colorizing this image. Also, I'll then be viewing all the other wonderful pics on this site as they were intended, and not with a pinkish/magenta cast, as I see them now. Without this post, I probably would've gone a long time before realizing there was a problem! :classic:

Thanks again,
- Kurt

Very interesting thread this is. I've read it at a stretch.(?)
Nice work, kschulz. I think you made great improvement on bringing her photo to life.

great job kschulz
:)
heathrowe

Imrtun, Venivedi, Heathrowe - Thanks for your great comments!

I like your first attempt. It has that old postcard look to it. Good job!

Also, the image itself is perfect. The expression on your mom's face, positioning, angle . . .nice.