Photoshop vs BlackMagic

[brockusn]

I am a long time user of Photoshop, but there are some things that I can't do well with the program. I have tried BlackMagic to colorize b&w photos, but when viewed in Photoshop for final touch-up, the images have a regular dot pattern the looks like colored pixels scattered over the intersects of a grid pattern. BlackMagic is easy to use, but how can achieve the same ease of use when colorizing b&w photos using only Photoshop? Is there anyone out thater who uses both programs that can give me some advise?

[Kraellin]

check out our restoration forum for help with colorization. i know nothing of BlackMagic, but we have some very good colorizers on this site that might be able to help you out.

[plugsnpixels]

Craig, here's what BlackMagic looks like.

[Kraellin]

oh, that's kind of interesting, plugs. how's it work for like an old b&w?

[plugsnpixels]

That's probably the perfect application for it! It's like painting in Photoshop, etc. in Color mode, where the applied color is "transparent", ie, letting the original image show through while colorizing it (rather than replacing it with a solid color overlay).

On my web page I show a desaturated color image as an example so you can see the before/after colorization against the original, but I just tried a quick test on an actual black and white image from 1945 and it's cool to watch the foliage come alive using an appropriate color preset.

BlackMagic version 2.85 seems to work fine in Windows 7, even on a MacBook ;-).

AKVIS Coloriage is another more recently updated option for performing this operation, though it works in a less manual way (it fills color regions after you provide "hints", while BlackMagic requires you to actually paint the color where it needs to go – though you can speed the process by using the Selection paint tool or the Magic-Touch paint tool).

[tomylee1]

i prefer Photoshop.