Members who color photos

[Larrister]

Just finished this little project.

Larry

[Larrister]

Here is another.

[Arto O]

Hi Larrister,
I didn´t read all the post in this topic and maybe my question is stupid, but how is the process to color the photos? Is it possible to find the original colors from the photo/negative?
If you can see my post in Foreign volunteers: The flags of ROA meeting in 1944.
Thanks
Arto

[Larrister]

Hi Larrister,
I didn´t read all the post in this topic and maybe my question is stupid, but how is the process to color the photos? Is it possible to find the original colors from the photo/negative?
If you can see my post in Foreign volunteers: The flags of ROA meeting in 1944.
Thanks
Arto

Hi Arto,

Your question is not stupid. All the colored photos posted by me are from my own collection. They are black and white
and colored by myself using Photoshop 8. You can restore color from a color photo or negative but the only way to color a B & W photo is to add the color yourself using a coloring/editing program.

Cheers,
Larry

[Waleed Y. Majeed]

Nice work Larry!

Done some myself - great fun actually. Do you work in layers or on the actual image?

To add to Arto O's question. Before computers and Photoshop the same
was done by hand usually using transparent colours like watercolours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand-colou ... hotographs


waleed

[Arto O]

Thanks Larrister,
So it would be possible in this particular topic, if the photo was taken as a colorphoto in first place.
Cheers
Arto

[Arto O]

Hi Larrister,
I need to bother you again. But in B/W photos which colors look more dark and which more light?
Arto

[Waleed Y. Majeed]

Hello Arto and sorry Larry for replying a question put to you...

Enhancing an original color photo by adding color is never the problem. The real problem is
imagining what is what on a b/w photo. I have added a color/bw scale below with the
basic colors mentioned in your posts + "flesh" and "field grey" (uniforms).

color_bw_scale.jpg

As you may notice it is hard to tell the difference between yellow and "flesh",
blue and black, red and green and the field grey. This is just based on these colors.
Slight variations in the various colors would naturally influence the greyscale too,
like light blue, darker reds or greens, grey (darker or lighter), gold etc.

Not sure if it is technically possible to identify/verify a color from a b/w image.
I would think you would need fairly large computer capacity... maybe the NSA can


waleed

[Larrister]

Nice work Larry!

Done some myself - great fun actually. Do you work in layers or on the actual image?

To add to Arto O's question. Before computers and Photoshop the same
was done by hand usually using transparent colours like watercolours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand-colou ... hotographs


waleed

I will attempt to answer some of your questions.

I don't use the layering technique but color the image directly.
My mother used to color photos by hand for a living and she was very good at it.

No matter how good an image is hand painted it still doesn't look real to me. Using applications such as PS I can color a photo to make it look as though the color photo was taken yesterday.

PS has a color pallet which uses sliding bars as follows:

Cyan - Blue
Magenta - Green
Yellow - Blue

I trace around the part of the photo I want to color with the Polygonal Lasso tool and use the Color Pallet Tool
to color inside the traced area. By using the Color Pallet Tool I can mix the colors until I get the desired effect.
One can get thousands -millions of different color variations with this tool.

As far as getting the colors correct, this takes practice, a good eye for detail and lots of research to get uniform, medals etc. colors right.

I may do a tutorial to show how I color photos.
Hope this helped.

Cheers,
Larry

[Larrister]

Here is a little tutorial showing how I color a photo. I have used the face of Oberst Wilhelm Postel (later a General).

Sequence from left to right. Variations from one photo to the next are subtle but the end result will speak for itselt.

1. Black and white image of Postel's face
2. Traced around face and added red
3. Added yellow to give flesh color
4. Desaturated color from eye, traced around eyeball and added blue
5. Traced around lips and added magenta
6. Traced around area under eye, around cheek and jaw, added magenta
7. Traced around eyebrow, hair area on side of head and added Cyan
8. Added a little contrast to photo and this is the end result

Hope photo is large enough for all to see details and changes.

[Larrister]

Here is the completed colorization of Postel which I did some time ago.

Larry

[Arto O]

Thanks Waleed & Larrister,
Waleed, as you show in your colour chart, it is extremely diffucult to find out the true colour in b/w colors. I has been looking many photos with volunteers with sleeve insignias, but............... It is also a question of material/reflection of light etc.
Cheers
Arto

[Waleed Y. Majeed]

Absolutely! Any slight variation in color. Be it the actual color of the material
or other influences such as light etc. will make a change.

Fantastic work again Larry!



waleed

[AlifRafikKhan]

No addition?

[Bond]

Here is one done by a friend on another forum, from the original in my collection.

Regards,

Jerry