[soulsinsepia]

albatrosss, the file is a photoshop .psd file. You need to open it in photoshop. My system is set up so that when I double click on a .psd file, it opens photoshop and launches the file. You may need to open the file in the traditional way under the menu of photoshop.

Karen

[hawkeye60]

Right click the file and select open with...choose Photoshop.

[hawkeye60]

I didn't finish this but it was done in RGB mode. I used solid color adjustment layers in color blend mode and one curves adjustment layer.

I will be trying out Ed's Lab method but I think this provided a very similar result.

[Ed Fisher]

Hi Karen
You're absolutely right, you've found another flaw in my tutorial - I wish I'd had you to proof it before I posted it! By 'set 0% Saturation' in the Hue/Sat adjustment layer I meant 'move the slider to -100' and should have said so!
You're right about the selection being added to the mask as you 'Add Layer Mask'. In fact you can make the selection before you create the Hue/Sat adjustment layer, which does the same and saves the trouble of deleting the blank mask and replacing it.
Ed's Sat Mask Curve psd was just a way to give you the actual curve which is inside the Curve adjustment layer, inside the file. When you open the Curve adjustment layer (double-click it's layer icon) you should see the curve itself, shaped like a shark fin. Use the Save button to the right of the fin to save the curve for future use. Now forget all about the psd file! When you get to the stage where you've created a saturation mask, apply the curve to it: don't create an adjustment layer curve, just open the Curves dialog from the main menu (Image > Adjustments > Curves), then use the Load button to load the curve from wherever you saved it to.
Let me know how you get on - when we've ironed out all the glitches in the tutorial, I'll update it!
Ed

[soulsinsepia]

Thank you, Ed. I have it figured out now. When I opened your curve, there was no save button, however, there is a preset options icon at the top of the box and when you open it, you can save the curve as a preset. Then when you go to the layer with the luminosity mask, it is under the preset curve menus when you go to image>adjustments>curves and you can apply it then.

So I worked on an image and everything was clipping along fine, until I wanted to go back and fill in some areas with more color. Other than keeping a specific palette of swatches for the image, how do you recreate the shade that you used to say fill in the skin on the face? Previously, when just doing color blend layers, you can hide all the layers and sample just the color you want.

Also, I really like Neat Image but it doesn't support LAB, so in order to use it, I have to flatten, convert to RGB and then apply that filter. Not a big deal, but thought I would point it out.

Also, what is the skin gradient process you have done with your sample image?

Thank you for your patience and support.

Karen

[soulsinsepia]

Ed, this was a little image that I played around with using your method plus Neat Image at the end. I wonder if I need more saturation in the skin. I couldn't get the blush on the cheeks with the saturation curve, so I made a regular color blend layer above the saturation curve layer and that worked for me. This is an old postcard from long ago.

Karen

[pixelzombie]

very nice, thanks for the info....i noticed that when i run the curve for the SAT mask on the image you posted that it doesn't match exactly, do you know why that is happening?

[soulsinsepia]

Pixelzombie,
I attached a hue/sat layer to each color layer and then tweaked the saturation and hue as I worked through the image. I also added a layer outside of the hue/sat curve mask for the cheeks. I just couldn't get the subtle shading to work within the confines of that curve. Maybe some or all of these things contributed?

Karen

[Ed Fisher]

*I've updated the pdf 'tutorial' attached to my post of 18/02/08, correcting a serious mistake in the step-by-step procedure (Sat -100, not 0% - apologies to anyone who wasted time trying to work out why everything was oversaturated), clarifying a few other points and adding a bit about incorporating Gradient Maps - if you downloaded it before today, please upgrade!*

Hi Karen

Excellent work.

Did you establish a full tonal range before you colorized it? (Auto Levels, or however you set your highlight and shadow points.) I said you can 'scan loose and fine-tune the greyscale later, but must rebuild the sat mask when you do' - but you must do it before you leave LAB or flatten your layers. You won't get the proper relationship between tone & saturation in the crucial highlights-to-quartertones if you come out of LAB with a flat image and set your range in RGB.

Did you paint all over the skin with full-strength colour? The sat mask fades the colour in the highlights, so you don't need to - you should use a 100% opacity brush with full-strength colours (Hue ?, Sat 60, Bright 100) throughout. (At least until everything is covered, then you might go back in with a lower opacity brush to modify that base colour with other hues. I prefer to do everything on separate layers, e.g. a skin base layer, a blusher layer, a lipstick layer - it makes it much easier to experiment & change things.

Sample colours you've used already just as you say, by temporarily switching off all the other layers (including the Hue/Sat adj layer clipped to it) - Alt-click on the layer visibility eye logo of the layer you want. If you've been painting with a brush at less than 100% opacity, or reduced the layer opacity, the sampled colour Saturation won't read 60% anymore - just reset it in the Colour Picker.

I use Gradient Map adjustment layers a lot - see the updated pdf.

With many old photos, the lightest skintones have bleached out and/or got lost in the discolouration of the paper so that when that tint is cleared the skin goes too. 'You can't colour what isn't there.' Actually, you can tint whites with Colour mode layers in LAB, but, because my method derives saturation from tone, it really works best with good quality, full-toned black & whites - it may be that other methods work better with faded, high-key, high-contrast and poorly exposed images.

Hi pixelzombie

If you're talking about trashing and rebuilding the sat mask on my 'Layers psd' example, I see what you mean. The difference is quite dramatic, but it's nothing to worry about: My tiny example was created much bigger and downsampled to meet the site's 100k file size limit, so when you delete and remake the sat mask at the new scale, the aliasing is much harsher.

Ed

[soulsinsepia]

Hi, Ed,
Things are going great and I am moving right along using your method. To answer your questions:
Yes, I do tonal adjustments before colorizing. I like to use Neat Image as well and it only works in RGB, so my method at present is to open the image in RGB, run NI, do some background spotting by using the nudge method by Katrin Eismann, if necessary, and copy a layer for spotting and one for cloning, if necessary. Then I stamp visible for a wip and move it over to a new LAB document. There I do the tonal adjustments and start the colorization process. I may still do a bit of spotting or facial softening etc. in this mode as well.

I have to admit I don't paint the whole image in full strength color. I usually go with the brilliance that is inherent with the color but do move the saturation to the Adobe RGB setting (52) and then clip a hue/sat ajustment layer to each color and tweak it till I like it.

Yes, I do a color layer for every component; lips, cheeks, eyes, etc.

I added a gradient map to the hair on one subject, and found it added a nice effect. I will try to use it more.

Thank you for the tip on how to isolate the color on a layer but I didn't know how to make all the layers visible again without clicking on each one. But I found out it was just simply alt clicking again on the eyeball of the isolated layer and voila, they all came back on.

Unfortunately, most of my images are not the good quality full toned black and white ones. They are mostly turn of the century photo postcards; some of which have some color painted on them by artists at that time. They tend to have a lot of noise and damage.

Thanks again. I think my color work has never looked better.

Karen

[wardell1]

Hi Skydog-The photo has very vivid colors. Why not make your bike this color?