Preserved Topic: Colorizing a b&w?

Anyone have any tips on colorizing an old black and white image? Any help or linksto tutorials on this subject would be appreciated.

//ramasax

This is a VERY laborious way to colorize something, but you could use selective color replacement, and use the magic wand to select your grays, including the "select similar" option from the "select" menu. Just a start . . .

Another laborious method is to create a new layer, and paint directly over your image using the Paintbrush in Color mode.

Do you want to make it a realistic set of colors, to make it look like a real color photograph? That would take a good chunk of work no matter what you're doing. But if you want to give it more of an abstract color scheme, you might be surprised what you can do with Indexed Color (it's not just for GIFs anymore!) I can post some tips if you're curious.

^ yikes!

Brush tool * blend modes. It's a piece of piss. Wheres the pic?

Weadz

piss comes in pieces???

?

ANYWAY ... I don't know if this is "correct" or not, but I seem to have better luck with new layers above w/ their mode set to color and the airbrush mode set to normal rather than the other way around.

Perhaps it is just personal preference...

piece
noun. (....) 3. a piece of piss (to a trained digger), an easily achieved enterprise or undertaking.
source here.

I shoulda said - use swatch colours on your brush - And the useful modes are multiply, overlay, screen, softlight, hardlight, dodge and burn. So colour, hue, sats, lumins etc are next to useless on greys =)

Weadz (I can't type)

[This message has been edited by Weadah (edited 02-20-2002).]

Well, here's the pic:


-large-

I don't have much experience working with real photos, but I did manage to color the bg, heh. It's where to go from there that troubles me.

//ramasax



[This message has been edited by Ramasax (edited 02-20-2002).]

Are you the almost pale one?

haha, no. The baby is my mother, and the others are her brothers and sisters. It's gonna be a birthday present for her if I can do it. Otherwise I'll just touch it up and do a hmm . . . I think it's called sephia.

blah blah,

//ramasax

cLink

Lotiss :

Its really about control for me. The more I get over the placement/sats/brightness/opacity variance from pixel to pixel the sharper the final result. Also I think that this *is* PS and there are no correct methods as such, only different ways to achieve similar results ? it?s then a question of which method/technique is choosen to solve a particular problem.

The desired effect is to (And I'm not really sure what the word is but we'll try) environmentalise the paint, make it 'bite' into the image in as many different ways as needed. Burn as an example won?t dull a value above a given range so you can go along making shadows without buggering up the higher values. Point is all the brush modes do *something* like it, giving us pretty decent control over how and where pixel values are distributed as they hit the canvas, and after.

Ramasax : I realise your not asking but if you wanna mail me at weadah@tryptych.net with some details ? eye/hair colour, clothing colour etc I?d be happy to finish this for you mum?s b?day.

Weadz


[This message has been edited by Weadah (edited 02-23-2002).]

heh, that's awesome. Not to sound unappreciative weadah, but I would really like to do this myself. For the value it will have as a gift, and for much need the practice/learnin experience I will pick up from doin it.

thanks,

//ramasax

Cool offer, Weadz.

Right on Ramasax !

At times, there is a glimmer of hope.

Ahh man thats exactly what I was hoping you'd say, too cool! I read 'mothers b'day' and thought mebbe you just needed it done - no worries at all. =)

Hey post your changes for crit too, this is pretty much straight forward with a Wacom but if you get stuck lettuce know. Fwiw anything I've made in the last 6 months or so has more or less been finished as a greyscale and then coloured. I find it's the most accurate way work....so far =)

Weadz (Cheers)

The 'Photoshop WOW' book has a tutorial on this. Everyone should own that book... its my bible.

Cheers!

-

Holy shit Weadah! Did you do that in Photoshop?

Later,
C:\


~Binary is best~

no, he used excell with its high-powered highlighting effects.

I just used color in the layers area and painted right over the pict to get the colorized effect. Here is my examples....
http://www.visi.com/~tsmith/Resume/touched.html


WolfenMedia

I've been know to print, colour with crayons (or whatever), and scan back in.

ok, any advice on getting those realistic skin tones. I'm stuck on that little aspect. Other than that it's going good, besides the fact that I've been restoring my system for the past 24 hours. Luckily I didn't lose much personal stuff(webpages, atrwork, writing, etc . . .) just program data. I had just backed up my personal files last week, but guess what isn't on there, hehe. Yup, have to start over on mum's bday present, lol.

//ramasax

hehe Excel yup... a few touch ups in Word, exported from MS Paint cuz it uses the power of maths!
CPrompt - Heh yah was Photoshop, bout 30-40 mins... like this :





And the judges say : COOKIE!

Weadz (hth)

Yah... I think he deserve a few cookies! that is sweet stuff!!

incredible.
give that man a cookie factory.

One cookie factory comin up !!



Good one Weadz. this one`s in the file

LOL db!
hehe. where did you get that cool pic? hahaha....
just think of what you can use this image for... hehehe

Oops, been away for a coupla days. Decided to reformat again and give XP a try. Although I was skeptical, it's not bad.

Almost missed that awesome tutorial. What can I say but thanks for taking the time to explain that Weadz. I finally got everything back in working order on my laptop. It is quite a task reinstalling all the software I am running on this thing, heh.

Anyways, it was quite helpful, and although I'm not getting quite the level of professionalism done in Weadz rendition (didn't expect to at first) I am getting better. Been practicing on some other pics too. I will post my final product in a new thread when I complete to see what you guys think.

Thanks again Weadz!!

//ramasax

Weadah: Another great little explanation panel (can't I twist your arm about the odd tutorial in the GN? The odder the better). I do hope someone is storing these for the children.

I should say that I see his going via Excel to Word and beyond fiddling all the time when people would be better off using the power of Access. Will you people never learn (Uncle Bill has supplied us with all the tools we'll ever need we just need to learn how to use them properly).

Emps

Emps : Thanks, nup and yah, the Asylum archive.

Ramasax : No worries man, anytime. This stuff is like 2/10 on a scale of skill required. Play around and yah post your changes.

Bob : which one's the cookie? Yowee! hehe

Weadz

Weedah, need I say that you amaze me more and more. I am going to copy that page and use it for reference. Thank you for the explination on your methods.

Later,
C:\


~Binary is best~