Learning how to colorize

[Ken Rogers]

This is my first colorization. I've reviewed many "Colorization" tutorials, including the one on this site. The clothing was easy to colorize, but the skin and hair don't look quite right, and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Basically, each part of the image has a masked hue/sat adjustment layer so that I can tweak and re-tweak colors as necessary. For the skin and hair, I used Bruce's Color Charts and blended these colors down into the image using the "color" blend option. I added some pink to the face in certain areas.

Your critique is welcome, as well as any direction you can give me to become good at this art.

Ken

[Caitlin]

Looking good Ken!

One piece of advice I've picked up from these forums, is that when colourising, nothing should stay grey - even if they are grey. Everything needs a touch of colour - so I think the overall affect would be better if the sofa and fan in the b/g had a touch of colour to make them more 'real'.

I think the colours your chosen are good. The red in the cheeks, and the hair seem a little oversaturated to me though.

The eyes could probably have a little more 'snap', maybe darkened a little?

[Ken Rogers]

Thank you. It seems that my colorization is only really coloring the highlights. Is there some way for me to colorize the midtones a bit more? I thought I read somewhere of someone using curves to apply color effects.

Ken

[soleah]

Hello Ken,

For the couch, I added different shades of light blue using low opacity brush.

I added RGB 245,206,189 on the skin to make him look more healthy. I also changed the color of the lips/inside of the mouth and darkened the eyes.

Aside from the cheeks, it helps to add a hint of RED here and there on the skin. The corner/rims of the eyes, the tip of the nose, some on the hairline, eyebrows and the fingertips. I also added some on the shadows of the skin.

One neat trick that I learned in applying these touch-ups is to run gaussian blur afterwards.

Originally Posted by Ken Rogers

Is there some way for me to colorize the midtones a bit more? I thought I read somewhere of someone using curves to apply color effects.

I'm not really sure about this. All I know is, as long as you have shades of gray, the solid color adj layer in color blending mode would suffice. Just adjust your layer/brush opacity accordingly.

[Flora]

Hi everybody,

Ken,

colorize can be done in different ways ... (as usual in PS.... ) .. If you go for 'paint the colour in' I would advise to do it on different blank Layers set to 'Color' ... in this way you can colorize the different parts of your picture separately and increase or decrease their intensity/saturation or even change the Hues with the help of Curves, Levels, Hue&Saturation ....

What I learnt from Vikki is that skin has never one colour only, but is a mixture of different colours... (reds, yellows, magenta and cyan for caucasians, for example..) ... so, after applying the first 'coat' I usually check to see what I can do to make it less 'flat' ...

The skin in your colorizing has barely any colour in it ... that's why the 'rosy' cheeks and the hair seem oversaturated in comparison, as Caitlin pointed out ... Lips and inside of mouth have, usually, a richer/darker colour ...

I had a go at your picture .... the basic colorizing was done following this Tutorial, corrections and enhancing were done with blank layers set to Color (as described before), Hue&Saturation and Selective Colors ...

Soleah,

great job in colorizing the skin, the only point I would do is that it is a 'one tone' colour ...

[Ken Rogers]

Soleah and Flora,

Your submissions are both excellent, and have motivated me to work hard at this. I suspect this is not so much about "knowing Photoshop" as it is "understanding color". Give me some time and I'll re-post my work.

Ken

[soleah]

Ken
I'm looking forward to that post.

Flora
As usual, your work is excellent!

[Ken Rogers]

I tried this again, with slightly better results. This will take some time to get the hang of. As per the tutorial mentioned, I worked with three masks - red, blue and yellow, adding and removing it as required.

I'm not really sure where I should be adding the various colors. I know that red belongs in the cheeks and edges of the face. I'll work at it some more.

Ken