Colouring old Photo's

[richo_i]

Had a shot at putting some colour in to old Photos any Comments or tips will be helpful. Ian



To give you a idea how old the Photo is the girl on the right was 70 last year

[cirks]

I think you've done a pretty good job. I've tried this a few times with photos even older than yours ! but have yet to end up with something that I'm happy with. You've done a much better job on skin tones than I managed (this was my biggest issue) but the other thing that was difficult was doing something sensible with the background. I don't know if you are going to try with yours as I don't think the half colour/half original works too well. I gave up and resorted to improving the black & white images Doesn't help you much but hopefully someone else can give us both more pointers.

[richo_i]

Thanx for that, The back ground is a major problem so I have decided to extract the family and put a nice new back ground in but at the mo I can't find the image I want at a high enough ressie for it to work.

[richo_i]

Persevered with the background, what do you think ?

[cirks]

richo_i said:

Persevered with the background, what do you think ?

Again - you've done a pretty good job and at least made an effort with the post and the branch/trunk etc.
I suppose my biggest issue with it is that it will always look like a 'coloured old print' rather than a modern colour image. Depends on what you're after - I'm a B&W fan which is another reason for giving up doing my own colouring. I just feel B&W is more timeless so trying to colour old pictures goes against that theory! Even the fairly informal family portrait I did at my Dad's 90th last year was converted to B&W.
At the end of the day, like everything to do with photography, it only really matters if you like what you've done. Hopefully some others will still come along and offer some ways of getting the method improved.

Edited by cirks on Tuesday 25th March 20:56

[Jack Blag]

I like what you've done and I have to point out that getting the colour balance right is no easy task, however you might want to tone down the vividness of the colours, particularly the green jumper. It gives it a slightly artificial look. By reducing the strength of the colours, the photograph should look more natural. Please don't be offended, I'm just trying to help!

[richo_i]

Thanks for the input, I have only had photoshop 3 weeks and the object of the exercise was purely to learn a bit about the program's capability's and for that it has been a great exercise but it goes with out saying it will take many more experiments of this kind before I will be happy . Ian

[paul.deitch]

why don't you take up painting?

[Carolineccb1]

You must have the patience of a saint! I think I prefer the first one, where only the people are tinted. I quite like the combination of an obviously old photograph that has been hand tinted - I know it doesn't look like a modern print, but to me, that is part of its beauty.

I wonder what it might look like if all of the colours were a lot more faded? Just hinted at? Maybe then, the disconnect between old and modern would sit better? Just a thought though, I think you've done a marvelous job!