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Coloring a Black and White photo


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GeorgeF73

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I thought I saw a neat tut somewhere about coloring a black and white photo. Seems the photo was of a US Air Force officer. Anybody have any idea where I can look for something like this.
Thanks.
GeorgeF73
 
Just to vouch for the results, I think this turned out almost ok. The tutorial's result was a bit too dark (on my screen at least), and the hair/skin colours were a bit too uniform. It was alleviated by adding some yellowish highlights. She might be a bit pale, but let's just attribute it to some or other disease. Either way, the technique seems very effective.
(I did not see any notices prohibiting the use of this particular photo - but if there's an issue one of the moderators can duly delete it.)
 
I'm very slowly learning how to colorize B/W photos...
I found this thread...here's my attempt. I'm really enjoying doing it..
Lasa
 
Geez, lasa, you call that "learning?" That's fantastic. You should be teaching, my friend> ;)
 
Lasa, some of the best b/w to color work I've seen. There's a place in L.A. that would probably be most interested in your skills (but you'd have to live in L.A.) :cry:
 
Excellent link for Black and White to color!. Had to try my hand at it using a Different Photo (One from my collection) I used a rather tarnished Photo. But I think it came out alright so far. I am not done and will do some tweeking to my mothers shirt since its a tad to bright for an Old Color photo. ;\

But here are my results using their Technique.
Before



After


^ and I just realized I had made a Boo Boo on the Shirt of my sister. I accidently colored some of it Skin Tone .. [saywhat]
 
Thanks I'm enjoying doing them...Nope, its all done with "selective color" and "hue / saturation"...
Lasa
 
Holy cow, lasa! Your good at this. Your a natural! Hats off. 8)) :} :} :}
 
Nice stuff.

Tried using some form of "selective color" adjustment layers with some hue & saturation (as indicated by Lasa), but couldn't quite get the hang of it. However, it seems to allow for easier adjustment later on in the process as your original selections can still be reselected easily and altered later on. Anyone have a good tutorial link for this method of colouring B&W? (Couldn't find any relevant ones right off the bat in Google)

Some good quality B&W moviestar photos available here for "practice": http://www.doctormacro.com/index.html (from the Visitor's agreement it seems one can use them for non-commercial use).
 
Doodad..I like it. I gave it a run also.
I think the basic difference is what we start out with..I've been using Variations (Image / Adjustment / Variations) to get a skin tone (basically a tan) I can live with
(learned it from somebody called Rakel)..Then later I adjust the skin tone with hue and saturation.

Most of the colors are made with selective color then masked to show in a particular place (lips)
I'll use paint brush set to color mode for eyes opacity 7-12%

When I'm done I tend to desaturate a little then I like to run the flattened picture thru Grain Surgery set very low..It mellows it all out..

Hope it helps..even though from what I see you really don't need it.
Lasa

This final can actually use a simple curve down to darken I think I lightened her up to much?
 
Added a little darkening curve...You can play with these until the cows come home..there is always something else you can do to it..Now I'm not sure it needed it...oh well...I think you can get the idea..
Lasa
 
Thanks for the tips Lasa, they definitely helped (not that it is particularly evident in my results! [honesty]). I'm just not getting that warmth and healthy skin-tone - so I'll leave it for a week or so and return to it - it is as you say, perhaps our points of departure that make the diffence.

There's a je ne sais quoi (I don't think even the French say that, only people who use words like "genre" do) about yours that makes it stand out. Thanks for sharing such quality work/play - and ha @ you walking around like a kid with crayons trying to colour everything in sight (referring to the Vegas statue colouring you did).
 
Once I've played with Variations the image looks like this...this is where I started on that image.
Everything else is a play on this starting point...later I use the hue and sat. to control the tone etc.

It can be done with hue and saturation by marking off colorize...same difference.
Hope it helps,

Lasa
 

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