Is this photo black and white or color?

[Gerald McClaren]

I would like to know if this photo is a black and white or color, and what is the original color of the background.


Gerald

[philbach]

Err good question, Gerald. I think its color since at the very top of the scanned image where the photo may have been a frame edge it appears that some of the color has been preserved. It looks like a door with a brown color.

[irshgrlkc]

Wow what a touch picture. To be honest I am leaning towards black & white despite what I did with LAB (levels adjustment in LAB mode, back to RGB and played with variations). Although there is color at the top and bottom edges it seems to just be a green tint of B&W. Dunno, am not a pro so I'm probably wrong.

[CJ Swartz]

Gerald, I guess I'll vote that it was color -- as Philbach said, there is a line of color at the edges, and a Levels adjustment seems to show skintones.

I tried to adjust colors, then ran it thru Polaroid's Dust/Scratch to reduce the spotting and Noiseware to smooth out the artifacts. She's sure a cutie --worth the effort it will take, I'm sure.

[Gerald McClaren]

Thanks Philbach, irshgrlkc(awesome black and white, what method did you use to get this type of black and white photo? color looks good too. CJ Swartz, thanks. I'll stick with the color and see how it comes out. I thank everyone for their input.


Gerald

[klassylady25]

This is what I think she may have looked like. I could pick out the pink in the dress and the little white socks. The background was iffy at best but I left that old time green with a little brown stool.

She did come alive and I thank you for sharing her.

[Gerald McClaren]

Hi! klassylady, good work, but how did you bring out the pinkish color out of the dress. Thanks for your help.

Gerald

[irshgrlkc]

For my B&W version I did a levels adjustment layer to fix the contrast. Then I added a channel mixer layer set to monochrome, and primarily used the green and blue channels as the red seemed a bit washed out. Added a blank layer to do some quick healing brush and clone brush. Next I ran the whole thing through Neat Image on the default settings. Finally I went to Edit > Fade Neat Image and adjusted the slider to 80%

[chillin]

It is a color picture. Needs a lot of work with levels.

[zganie]

this photo is black & white maybe the color at top is from scanner,but i believe its a b&w photo

zganie

[klassylady25]

Originally Posted by Gerald McClaren

Hi! klassylady, good work, but how did you bring out the pinkish color out of the dress. Thanks for your help.

Gerald

I was able to see it when I used the threshold levels. It was faint but there none the less. After that I created a color level and used the color that I was able to pick out to recolor the dress.

[chillin]

Originally Posted by zganie

this photo is black & white maybe the color at top is from scanner,but i believe its a b&w photo

zganie

Maybe you're right.

[Kraellin]

i believe this question was answered in this thread: http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...ighlight=flora so, i'm a little uncertain why we're seeing this again.

[Gerald McClaren]

Hi! Kreaellin, it was posted a long time ago. I had asked about removing the color cast because I wasn't too sure if it was a black and white or color. I had put it aside for a while because I didn't like the way it came out. I decided to take some time and redo the whole picture since I had learned a lot about layers and color correction etc.


Gerald

[kiska]

My vote is for BW. I don't think a color pic would 'shift' that evenly....may be wromg, tho.

[Kraellin]

gerald,

ok.

and my feeling is it was color. normally, black and whites dont turn this way unless there's mold and then they tend to eat away the film layer. there's no real evidence of that here. add to that flora's treatment and i'd have to say color.

[coal]

i have to disagree with kraellin
i have never seen or heard from a color picture that faded to perfect sepia. red colors are the first to disapear whilst fading

the discoloration one would expect from mold and age are magenta spots an green stuff toward the edges, wich is exactely what i see here(after lab processing)

my opinion therefore is:
its b/w the color traces that are present in it are due to its age.
the chemicals used in developing and coloring the print make it discolor over time.

[kiska]

Guys, if you finagle curve/levels enough on a bw pic, you're gonna get color. This is a bw film photo I took several years ago. A bona fide bw. Now it's color. Not very neat but demonstrative.

[CJ Swartz]

Kiska -- WoW! That is an amazing demonstration! I'm going to have to try that with my black/whites -- it's good to know what a known image will do before we try to figure out an "unknown".

Thanks for working that out and showing us the results.

[chillin]

Originally Posted by kiska

Guys, if you finagle curve/levels enough on a bw pic, you're gonna get color. This is a bw film photo I took several years ago. A bona fide bw. Now it's color. Not very neat but demonstrative.

I don’t think it is a good example. You have manipulated separate parts of the picture.
It is the same as colorizing. I am still not convinced. I think it could go either way.

[Kraellin]

i still have to go with flora's original assessment. notice the very top and bottom edges. there is a bit of a color strip on each. i've never known a black and white to pick something like this up.

also, trying out flora's method, it just doesnt pump up like a colorizing. and you can see the faint color she uses to get her final image. by just doing the black and white points and the hue/sat layer, you can see how it brings this out in a natural way.

so, i'm sticking with flora

[CJ Swartz]

Originally Posted by kiska

Guys, if you finagle curve/levels enough on a bw pic, you're gonna get color....

Now that I think about it a bit longer -- I knew that. That's why we have to change the layer blend to Luminosity on a Curves adjustment layer if we are only adjusting for contrast -- so that we don't affect the color. I scanned some of my father's Civilian Conservation Corps photos from the '30's (all B/W) and changed some of them to color or sepia; I can remember that I was surprised how much color I could get out of them just with Curves -- didn't have to brush on much color. I just tried it again with a few -- if I just used Hue/Sat -- there was no color when I increased the saturation, but if I added a Curves adjustment and used Normal rather than Luminosity for the layer blend mode -- I could change the grays to red, magenta, yellow, green, blue...etc. If I change it to Luminosity -- back to B/W. (Actually, there were some that reacted to the Hue/Sat adjustment -- guess when I scanned them in that I did something that added a yellowish tone. This image didn't have it though.)

[Cassidy]

CJ, are you able to give a bit more detail as I am sure you can potentially tone-map if you know how

[CJ Swartz]

Cass, I haven't yet done any tone-mapping although I plan to shoot some landscapes to practice doing HDR images. What are you suggesting here -- would tone-mapping help Gerald with his image? I thought we had to have several exposures of the same image to do tone-mapping? I've only read a bit about it until I get CS3 and have a chance to start working with the concept.

[Cassidy]

Having grown up in the era of b/w tv, sure I can visualise colours mentally, so why not tone map?

[Gerald McClaren]

Here's my final restoration of the little girl on the stool. I would like to know how can I improve on it.


Gerald