Sandbox - hand coloring old photographs

[Sandbox365]

This Sandbox tutorial shows you how easy it can be to bring old photographs to life using colour tinting. You could work on an old family photo and surprise your friends and family with your new editing skills! Using layers, it really is as easy as paint-by-numbers!

Here are some examples of colourized images




There are lots of different ways to colorize images, here is one I find the quickest & easiest. You could also use layer masks, but for most images I don’t usually find it necessary.

So.... lets get going.... here is a monochrome image I'll be working on, ......... you can hunt out your favourite monochrome image, ( or use the one below) and hey presto you can bring it to life!


1. Scan or photograph your image or negative. Hopefully it will be at least 3,000 x 2,000 pixels in size to give you enough data to work with.

2. Open the image in the editing program and check the image is RGB by going to Image → Mode →RGB Color

3. Duplicate the background and rename it to ‘base’. Apply a basic clean up & increase contrast. A light clean up of noise can also help, such as Filter → Noise → Dust & Scratches. Later this year Sandbox will provide a more detailed photo-restoration project, so as long as you get your size is correct now, you can just replace the (repaired) ‘base’ layer at a later date & the colorizing will still work.

4. Create a new blank layer (Layer→New→Layer) and name it ‘skin' (or whatever!)

5. With the new blank layer active, (Window→Layers) set opacity to 50% and blend mode from normal to colour blend mode so you can see where to paint. ( you may want to experiment with soft light blend mode later on for some colours / materials too)

6. select a suitable colour using the eye dropper tool and use the brush tool with a soft feathered brush ( about 50 softness) paint on that layer over the area of skin ( or whatever). don’t worry it does not need to be perfect! Use the square brackets [ and ] to change the size when needed, and the eraser tool ( with a small size brush tip and harder edge than the paint brush) to delete the paint from areas such where you went over the edge, and eye balls, earrings etc .

7. once the areas to be painted that colour is finished, if you wish, you can fine tune the colour layer by using a Hue Saturation Lightness adjustment layer ( Ctrl/Cmd+U). Turn 'colorize' button on, and then adjust the hue slider until you are happy. You may wish to adjust layer opacity after that as well.

8. repeat steps 4→8 for each colour you wish to paint, .....and you are done!
http://www.lynda.com/Photoshop-tutorials/Using-Brush-tool-isolate-individual-color-areas/133329/164175-4.html has the basic information (you can just ignore both the Action & Group steps - we have done it all manually)



I have used a range of starting colours, and a variety of layer opacity & blend modes // skin - soft light @ 46% opacity / hair - soft light 24%/ eyes - colour 20%/ dress colour 34%. You can see it is not perfect & I am no artists, but fortunately for me, colorization in low opacity is quite forgiving. :-D

And here we have the final colorized image...



RESOURCES
http://www.colorizephoto.com/
- a free online colourizing site where you can upload your own images. fun to try if you don't feel happy with layers quite yet! You don't need any editing program at all!

GIMP
http://tutorialgeek.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/use-gimp-to-create-color-photos-from.html

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Colorize-an-Old-Black-and-White-Photo-with-GIMP-A-GIMP-Tutorial

COLOUR INFORMATION
(CS6) http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-use-color-picker-in-photoshop-cs6.html

CC ( Hue & Brightness cube) http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/photoshop-cc-2014-color-panel/

colour definitions vary according to their use. For example, some expression of essentially the same ‘colour’ in the definitions you may come across are:
3 digit R(ed) G(reen) B(lue) numerical colours used for the internet images (enter in the RGB boxes the numbers 235, 53,53 to define the shade of red)
4 digit C(yan)Y(ellow)M(magenta)K(black) numerical colours used by printers (CMYK 0,85,75,0)
6 digit hex codes used by computing programmers (hex #eb3535)

https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/ if you have a (free) Adobe ID, you can create & save a palette from any image you upload. see on the right hand side create from image…
A free add-on for Firefox and Chrome Colorzilla ( http://www.colorzilla.com/ ) can copy colours from any web image onto your clipboard & you can match the colour exactly in Photoshop. (handy for historical accuracy)

If anyone feels overwhelmed with colour options, here is a palette I created from an actual wedding image that was hand painted in 1945. Download the enlarged image ( it is only small) and open in your editor. Use your colour picker to select a colour & then move to your own image & use the paint brush


SKINTONES
I often find skintone quite difficult to get right, so sometime I just type the codes into the colour selector from a chart - RGB & hex Skintones chart
http://i.imgur.com/naHZL.jpg and http://jillienedesigns.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/rgb-codes.html

you can also open an image or palette in photoshop and use and eye dropper -
finding historical colours
http://www.lynda.com/Photoshop-tutorials/Determining-color-scheme/133329/164168-4.html ( great background viewing)

ADVANCED OPTION
A few patterned fabrics such as worn denim & plaids, might need extra work so they don't look quite so 'painted'. You might investigate the Blend-if layer blend settings http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/blend-if/


@888rachel @_catherine_ @adambralston @aecasey @aikiuser @amandal @amyleewinfield @andy3168 @aponi @aprilmilani @auroajane @beluga @bill_fe @bizziebeeme @brianarmoured @brigette @bulldog @callymazoo @catwhiskers @charmboxstudios @clarek @creampuff @darylo @dibzgreasley @dmcoile @ethelperry @flyrobin @francoise @frankhymus @gigiz @graemestevens @grammyn @harley84 @homeschoolmom @houser934 @jantan @jo13 @joansmor @jocasta @juliedduncan @jyokota @kali66 @karlow75 @katymac80 @krenneker @kt8ird @ladygator @laetitiapetrussa @lambda @longexposure @lovemy3littles @luvthyclassics @lynnz @maggiemae @mbrunner @megstorey @moviegal1 @myhrhelper @neatz @northy @olivetreeann @overalvandaan @palmilla @panthora @pennyp @pixelchix @pixiemac @polarvrtx @radiogirl @randystreat @rducky @roseolivia @rosiekerr @salza @shailestha @shesnapped @sioux @slash @stiggle @suebarni @thistle @thresheg @tigerdreamer @vignouse @voiceprintz @wenbow @taffy

So there you have it

tag your images Sandbox-colorizing and feel free to post images, and any resources, comments and questions!

@ltodd

[kali]

amazing!

[Saxa van Eijnsbergen]

Oh, I want to try this! Am way behind though with PS tasks (I think I stopped at textures due to lack of time) but saving all of the threads for when it quietens down a bit.

[Kathryn]

here is mine - this was fun but lots of decisions had to be made

before:


after:

[Kathryn]

here is another one, this is my grandmother's grandfather

[Lyn Todd]

@aponi Kathryn they look great! I do think your grandmother's grandfather looks just a little bit like a bush-ranger! ;-D Good job with his skintone - I usually find that the hardest bit to get right.

[Anja]

Here is my first attempt:

[Kathryn]

@ltodd I bet the same ilk of scoundrels settled Texas and Australia. They were both pretty much the wild west back in the day. ;-)

[Anja]

Here's another photo:



The skintones chart is really helpful, thanks for including that in this post. The hard part of colorizing for me is that you can't paint over parts you've already done, because it'll change the color (makes it more intense). I find it difficult to get a smooth color.

[Lyn Todd]

@stiggle your colorizing has brought out such great textures in those images! :)

I think I know what you mean about smooth colour. What brush settings are you using? If flow is set to less than 100%, the paint colour will build up that amount each time. ( ?? use the BRUSH setting of 100% and flow 100% and reduce the LAYER opacity settings)

http://retouchingacademy.com/the-difference-between-opacity-fill-and-opacity-flow/

( @mikegifford does that sound the right answer Mike?)

I did not realise this as I don't use PS - in PSP it is slightly different, so I hope my interpretation is correct.

[Anja]

@ltodd Thanks Lyn, that helps! Flow was set to 50%. I gave it a quick try with the flow set to 100% and that works. Amazing how one simple button can make so much difference. :-) Thanks again, much appreciated!

[Sue]

My Sister.

This is one I did a while ago.
http://365project.org/sioux/365/2014-12-23

[Mike Gifford]

@ltodd Great session with layers, blending modes and the use of brushes! This will be fun for people that try it!

[Francoise]

Here is a shot at colorizing (my dad at age 2 in a 1918 photo)

Before


and After

[Kathy]

I'm a little slow

Before photo used (although processed a little in this image


I work in Photoshop Elements so I don't have some of the options talked about in this lesson. It was fun and I'd like to try it again sometime

[Joyce]

I enjoyed this and found it very interesting. I struggled with her hands and arms. As you can see on the original they appeared very dark and I failed in my efforts to lighten them. All suggestions would be very welcome.

[Lyn Todd]

@thistle nicely done Joyce! Some starting pictures do benefit from a little 'touch up' - here your image has lightness on the face, but shadows on the arms. You might like to make a duplicate of the base image & try a paint-on lightening correction using the dodge tool.

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/l/bllps508c.htm

For your image try limiting the range to the midtones & paint a soft brush & low opacity over the arms to lighten the areas JUST enough to get the same depth as the darker cheek. ( dont try & go too far).

DODGE & BURN TOOLS - see also -
http://www.dpchallenge.com/tutorial.php?TUTORIAL_ID=30
http://simplephotoshop.com/photoshop_tools/dodge_toolf.htm ( video)


@stiggle & everyone - This dodge technique can also be used to whiten teeth a little in colorized images. Dont overdoo it though! No-one really has glow-in the dark teeth !! :-D

[Lyn Todd]

@sioux such a cute photo - so "on-trend" at the moment - I can really imagine it used in a retro advertisement.

@francoise Francoise he is adorable! The colouring has really brought out the 3D look through the leaf shadows. great colour selection too.

[Lyn Todd]

@randystreat Kathy the lighting in that shot is so lovely! The colouring really brings the viewer's attention to your face and then down to your hands & the action. Lovely colorizing!