Cooper Girl

[Bambi]

Original



BW



Hand Tint



I'm not the first to try this one. The color correction was nearly impossible, so I asked QC for help. The experts suggested that BW might be the best way to save it. So that's what I did. Then hand-tinted it just for fun. Let me know what you think.

Bambi

[Hannie]

Bambi, that looks great!  The black and white version can be "cleaned up "some by adding a 50% gray layer in Soft Light mode, using the white brush to get rid of of some of thedark areas.
(I added some contrast, perhaps too much!)

Hannie

[Bambi]

WIP BW



WIP Color



That technique worked great, Hannie. Is that better? Might add a little more contrast to the BW. Somewhere between yours and this one, I think.

Bambi

[kiska]

A colorizing trick I just thought of. You can do a sepia adjustment on the bw first. Helps alleviate the heavy grayness of the skin tones.

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Hi Bambi,

I really like what you did so far :-).
However the color version still looks a little too monochromatic for my taste.

What I would do is selectively colorize/saturate areas.
For the skin tones you should be aware that the saturation should become less towards the highlights and be highest in the shadows: http://navate.com/images/tutorials/skin1_spheres.jpg
One easy way to achieve this is via a gradient map.
Also teeth are never perfectly white, so I'd add a little yellow/red to them.
Next the sclera shouldn't be perfectly white either, but rather a little blueish as she seems quite young (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclera).

So that's a quick and dirty version of the direction I'd go with this image personally:

[ohfer]

You guys are so much more knowledgeable than I am that you likely already know this, but here goes anyway.  :)

I discovered a trick while colorizing--and please tell me if it's not permissible with OPR projects--that lessens the gray left in the whites of the eyes, teeth and any white clothing. I swiped the last colorized version Bambi posted and painted over the areas with white at between 8-11% opacity, depending on how much detail was in those areas (less opacity for more detail, and more with less). I then painted over her teeth with a very light yellow at 5% (since human teeth are actually ivory in color and not white), and painted over her gums with red at 8%.

At that low opacity you do need to go over each area several times, but it preserves detail and gives you more control. It also keeps it from looking painted. The effect is subtle but noticeable. I did kind of a slapdash job on this, so the bib of her dress might look a bit streaky.

[Mhayes]

What a great thread and I love it when there are different ways to approach a photo. Jonas, I tried clicking on your photo to bring up a larger version to see it better, but I kept getting the little wheel spinning like it couldn't make the link or else it wouldn't enlarge? Thanks for the helpful links.

Long time ago I got one so bad that I couldn't color correct and had to colorize: http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,1380.0.html (unfortunately there are a lot of broken links) I believe I probably used the best channel for B/W converted to RGB and did solid Color Fill Layers like what is described in Katrin Eismann's Photoshop Resoration & Retouching on page271 and also tips I picked up on a tutorial on hand colouring black and white photos in the Photoshop Creative published in the UK.

Ohfer, we have no problems with hand coloring a photo that can't be color corrected the regular way. I am curious whether you are doing blank layers set to color mode and adding color or are you painting over the original with your opacity reduced?

What has been done so far is a big improvement. I think what I would like to see and it is kind of hard without a reference photo, but more of a color variation in the the face. Yes, the opacity for the shadows and highlight vary, but it seems the color is all the same.

Margie

[Hannie]

This post on RetouchPro explains a great method for colorizing in the way that Jonas mentioned, less saturation in the lighter parts etc.
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/photo-retouching/20727-colorization.html

I tied it a while ago and it worked really well.  I tried it again today and I must have gone more stupid over time because I can't get it to work for me any more.  Perhaps someone else can figure it out?

Hannie

PS
Jonas, I changed your link so everyone can see it.

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Adding the solid color layer will probably end up with pretty flat looking results, which is one of the things I was trying to prevent by using gradient maps to introduce different color into different levels of luminosity.
It also seems like Ed's method (from the RetouchPRO link) does basically the same by first adding a luminosity mask to your layer and applying a U-shaped curve to it.
What that does is allow for the greatest effect in the shadows and highlights, so I'm guessing for colorization you'd have the mask inverted first.
However this also just decreases the amount of saturation among the tonal range, it doesn't introduce new hue, which is why I'd still prefer gradient maps or maybe even curves if needed.
One thing I tend to do when skin tones just get to monochromatic is create a new selective color adj. layer in "Hue" mode, set the method to "Absolute" (not the blending mode, the method inside the selective color) and pull the cyan slider in the reds all the way to -100% as well as pull the yellow slider in the yellows all the way to +100%. This will introduce more yellow to the highlights and more reds to the shadows thus making the skin tones a little more varied and natural.
However this doesn't work so well in this case as the contrast is so low in the face.
I'm still thinking about other ways to get it right though :-).

[Bambi]

This is a great thread. I hope everyone is learning from it. I'm going to have a great time finishing this one. Thanks to all of you for taking the time to give such precise instructions. You don't get this kind of help on most forums.

Bambi

[ohfer]

Ohfer, we have no problems with hand coloring a photo that can't be color corrected the regular way. I am curious whether you are doing blank layers set to color mode and adding color or are you painting over the original with your opacity reduced?

Margie, I was referring to painting over it with reduced opacity. I haven't done it on any of the OPR photos I've worked. I used it on a couple of old restores for family when I couldn't get anything else to work, and they came out really well, but at the time I didn't have access to experts or a comprehensive tutorial section like I do here. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I have SO MUCH to learn. And I appreciate every bit of help and advice I get from everyone here.
 :loveit:

[Mhayes]

Ohfer, if you do it that way, make sure it is an extra layer so that you can are able to redo in case you don't like what you have done. That is why I like doing it in layers above. I too have picked up some really helpful tips from this post.

Margie

[Bambi]

Gave her a little more shape and put some texture in her hair and took the saturation down a little.