Recolouring a bitmap - photographic colour temperature

[-=Drifter=-]

He colored one in another thread:
http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...eferrerid=9056

[parahandy]

Well gnurf take an old photograph that has no co;our and give the face flesh tones and the clothing some colour as well like I did with this picture of my dad or that picture in the thread as Bob pointed out . Thank you.

[gnurf]

Ok, finally had the time to colorize a bw-photo with Xara. I usually use Photoshop with the Color layer mode. Now I used layers with Stained glass (quite eqvivalent to Multiply layer mode in PS) and Bleach (Screen layer mode in PS). A lot of transparency percentage adjusting, as well as using feathering on the shapes. I attached the Xar-file so you can rip it apart

Simply put: find the color you wish to use and adjust the saturation/brightness with transparency percentage if it appear too bright. Also, you have to add shades so for example faces do not look flat (look at the cheeks, chin and forehead in my example). And you will notice it is mostly about very subtle tones and adjustments, but they will make a very big impact on the final work!

And a final note; don't use pure black or pure white in your images! A very common mistake (even among so called professionals) is to use pure white on eyes and teeth. I usually use a shade of blue on eyes and a shade of yellow on teeth. In the colorized version converted my "black&white" RGB scan to grayscale by right-clicking on 90% black (instead of 100% black) to preserve details and avoid making the photo too dark.

[-=Drifter=-]

Norm and Paul - both are excellent examples of what can be done to color b/w photos. Great jobs. [Norm, apparently your dad was the last one in the ancestral line to be a handsome gentleman.... ]

[parahandy]

Thank you Paul, I had an idea at the back of my head that that would be the path to take you certainly made a very fine job with your photograph.

Norman

[abligh]

(with apologies for answering my own question)

Hue Transparency seems to be quite useful.

Alex