Black And White Colorized

[Justin Goode]

here's my attempt of colorizing an old photo of my grandpa. This is my first time trying this and I don't really have much experience with photo retouching at all, but it's somthing I've been getting into in my freetime lately.

Lemme know what you think about this and what I need to improve, thanks
after
before

[Kraellin]

justin,

welcome to RP.

i'll just point out a couple things on this cause i'm off to bed soon.

first, it looks very good overall.

second, you've cut off the bottoms of his irises just a bit.

and third, the shadows on his neck look more like hair or dirt than shadows.

if i were grading it, B+

(it's actually pretty darned good)

craig

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Justin,

Nice job overall, good skin tones.

I agree with Craig about the eyes. Also the outline of the hat looks a little too sharp (compare with original), could do with softening very slightly.

But these are pretty small faults on an otherwise well executed colouring.

[Vikki]

Very nicely done!
Because his glasses do not have a frame along the bottom, you might try lighting the skin area the under the glass just bit. A subtle change in color might help as well.

[NancyJ]

Excellent skintones!
As far as colourisation goes its pretty flawless. There are a few spots that I can see (if you look long enough) where the colouring doesnt quite match the shading but its very good for a first try.
not sure about the colour of the gold but thats a minor quibble.
The base image could have done with some work beforehand though. I think most of the comments being made could have been avoided if you'd worked on the base image a little more first.

[NancyJ]

Just to demonstrate what a cleaned up background image can do. Pasted yours in over the top and set the blend mode to colour (didnt have time to color it myself)

[Justin Goode]

Hey everybody, thanks alot for the feedback so far! Great forum y'all have here, i'll definitly take a look into working on all the areas everybody pointed out.

I definitly do need to finess the original image a little, all I had done was a level and tone adjustment. I"ll make sure not to forget about doing more cleanup work on the original in my next one. Thanks again.