how to colorize a B & W photo

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Posted By
nytrashman7618
Oct 22, 2003
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254
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15
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I have an old photo of my father taken 50 (?) years ago in Florida. I have scanned it and cleaned it up to where it now looks pretty good. I would like to turn this photo into a color photo but I am unsure how to go about it. is it even possible to something like this with Elements?
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GD
Grant_Dixon
Oct 22, 2003
George

I suspect that you haven’t received a reply because the explanation is a bit complex. While the task is simple it is a bit tedious.

1) Take an image and make sure it is in RGB mode.
2) Mast the area that you want to colour.
3) Open up Hue/ Saturation (Ctrl U)
4) Click on Colorize
5) Adjust the Hue then the Saturation and finally Lightness
6) Remove the selection
7) Repeat this procedure for every item you want coloured.

As you can see the more colours you choose the more complex the problem is. One tip is you would probably best do this using layers this enables you to go back and fine tune the individual colours.

Good luck it is a fun project and will teach you lots about Elements.

g
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nytrashman7618
Oct 23, 2003
Grant,
I am not sure I understand what you mean by "mask" if possible could you explain what this is/how to do that?
GD
Grant_Dixon
Oct 23, 2003
George

Masking or Selecting, as Adobe labels it, is like masking a car’s chrome so you do not paint what you don’t want to paint. Adobe offers you a number of tools that will allow you to be very selective for the areas you want to work. The best place to learn about this, on line, is
http://arraich.com/elements/ref2/aatoolbar2.htm. Jay has set a good reference on these tools. The ones you are interested in are 1. 2. 3 and 16.

Also don’t over look Selecting in Element’s help files. Don’t be discourage as this is not an easy first project to start but Elements is well suited for the task.

G,
RC
Richard_Coencas
Oct 23, 2003
Grant’s suggestion is a good one, but there are many ways to skin a cat in Elements. Another method is to convert the image to RGB, then create a new empty layer over the background. Set the blending mode in the layers palette to Color, and then use the paintbrush tool to color in the image.

Rich
GD
Grant_Dixon
Oct 23, 2003
Richard

I do love your method … much better than mine. But …. because I am not a great artist or Photoshop person ( I make tons of errors) I would add the use of separate levels with their own control level. This allows you to do instant colour changes. Another thing I had a problem with was using Color as the mod it didn’t want to work well with white so I did switch back and forth between different modes. Here is my effort and for any that want to see how it is done the PSD file is included but it is about 1.5 meg. Don’t be too critical as I did the colouring very quickly

http://www.cavesofice.org/~grant/AddColour.html

g..
RC
Richard_Coencas
Oct 23, 2003
Nice work Grant. The reason I suggested the painting method is that newer users often grok the idea of painting easier than masking. I agree my method takes some artistic ability, but by painting on empty layers in color or hue mode, it is non-destructive and pretty easy to fix your mistakes.

Rich
CR
Chris_Rankin
Oct 23, 2003
Here’s an example using a method similar to Grant’s. I selected each Element of the photo using one of the selection brushes and then colorized it using Hue/Sat

<http://www.pbase.com/image/17189711>

It’s tedious but in my opinon gives more control than painting over with a color – you stay truer to the original shading of the photo (shadows and such.) That being said, it may just be I didn’t have the technical skills to do it the other way. The good thing about PSE is, as Richard said, there’s more than one way to skin a cat with it – you just have to find the method that skins you up the least in the process.

CR
RC
Richard_Coencas
Oct 23, 2003
Chris,

When you are painting on a layer using the Color blending mode you retain the underlying shadows and highlights. The only techncial skill is staying inside the lines, and you can still paint each section on its own layer as long as the layer is in the correct blending mode. It is really not much different than using the selection brush to select each segment, only difference is that you are applying the color directly.

Rich
PA
Patti_Anderson
Oct 23, 2003
I still have the pictures up of the old photo (unknown "lady in wrap") I colored in Elements. I was going more for the effect of those old hand painted photos.

Since I scanned it in RGB, I didn’t have to use Colorize. However as Grant suggested above, I did the painting on separate layers since some parts needed more or less transparency. The lip color, the hair, the hair highlights, the eyes, the blouse…etc. are all on separate layers.

<http://www.patchpieces.com/oldphotos.html>

Patti
CR
Chris_Rankin
Oct 23, 2003
Rich,
My mistake was probably in the blend mode, of course that still leaves the whole coloring within the lines thing. 🙂

CR
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Dimrilldell
Oct 23, 2003
I have used Grant’s method with really good results on most, but not all images. Am now eager to try out the other methods described in this thread. Thanks to Patti, Chris and Grant for sharing your images. They look terrific.

Dimrilldell
GD
Grant_Dixon
Oct 23, 2003
Dimrilldell

Try adjusting the mode from colour to normal often helps for me. Or visa versa.

g.
RL
Richard_Lynch
Oct 25, 2003
If you learn to target ranges to tone, you can apply color with more accuracy than just setting the mode — and you can do it while applying in normal mode. applying in normal mode to a specific range will give you fuller color and better targeting to specific areas of the image.

See this reference to Blend Masking < http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0782141781/ref=sib_dp_srch/1 02-3631199-0670548?v=search-inside&keywords=Blend+mask&a mp;go.x=0&go.y=0/newwriting>. Scroll down to the link to page 84.

Hope that helps!

Richard Lynch
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Dimrilldell
Oct 26, 2003
Richard:

Many thanks for this tip and also the one on how to navigate within Amazon.com’s books. Excellent!

Dimrilldell
WE
Wendy_E_Williams
Oct 26, 2003
I have recently had quite good results, on old photographs, by using gradient mapping …. especially for skin tones.

I picked up the idea from Richard’s book (Page 53 … ) and have now built up a set of gradients just for this purpose. When you you want to colour a photograph, first create your mask and then you can quickly and easily try out different gradients to see which is best.

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