Colourisation - I was Inspired!

[Richard Briggs Profile]

Having seen the work of Cowboyo I decided to give it a try and, in quite short time, I have produced something that exceeds what I have ever managed to do in Photoshop Elements. Anyway, here it is (another soldier, my Dad)...

Richard

[eadams Profile]

Great job! It's hard to believe it was your first colorization!

[Cowboyo Profile Website]

Having seen the work of Cowboyo I decided to give it a try and, in quite short time, I have produced something that exceeds what I have ever managed to do in Photoshop Elements. Anyway, here it is (another soldier, my Dad)...

Richard

What a great Job you have done I like it, Just for Ref once you got the color in on left side you might have 1 or 2 sliding bars try siding the bar to get the color your after
I would have used it on your dads uniform the green is ok but it looks bran new if you had moved the sider to the left this would have reduced the green till your happy with it

[Cowboyo Profile Website]

hope you Didn't mind but I had a go on your Father to But I missed back of his shirt and did not do his pipe, I did it to show you on using the fader that's on the left side

combine_images.jpg (254.35 KiB) Viewed 7752 times

[Richard Briggs Profile]

That's great (see note at foot). Strange you chose that background. That was my initial choice! So, just in case I have missed some aspect of what you do Cowboyo. here's what I did....

1 - Firstly I used Photoshop Elements to remove blemishes (dots, specks etc). I find PSE easier for this than SPE.
2 - Loaded the B&W image into SPE.
3 - Select Area. So, for example, shirt.
4 - Browse effects until I see one that a) colours the shirt with no, for example, texture and b) has sliders for hue, saturation, etc. The more sliders relating to colour the better.
5 - Select the effect and now adjust the aforementioned sliders until I get the colour I want.
6 - Repeat from 3 above for as many areas as needed (hair, flesh, pipe, background, etc).
7 - When complete zoom in and tidy up borders of each area to ensure no over/underspill. Do this by selecting the 'layer' in the top row. I ended up with about 12 (Pity you can't name them like in PS).

Is this consistent with what you do Cowboyo or is there some other aid you use?

I struggled with the colour of my Dad's shirt as the photo was taken in Malaya 1965 and so he would have been in 'jungle green' not the standard British Army khaki or dull green. But one thing I noticed is that having coloured an area you can almost not desaturate enough. Very easy to end up with an artificial looking colour. Particularly so with flesh.

Richard

[Cowboyo Profile Website]

only time I zoom in is for the Eyes other than that I color the photo as you see it in SPE, But i use the Slider a lot now so I can get the Right color especially with the Flesh, on there I some times use the gold brown color and move the slider as you can see with the flesh you gave and difference with mine,

Im not perfected on using SPE I have had it for about a year but in that time I only done 70 Photos as in a way i am new to this too but turned out some good ones and bad ones we learn as we go on playing with it

[WC Lawson Profile]

Very impressed. Excellent work. You resisted what I see done quite often and that is over saturation. Bravo!

[Cowboyo Profile Website]

What do you mean over saturated

[Richard Briggs Profile]

Over saturation - making the colours to vivid so that they appear unreal. I think we both, Cowboyo, agree via our exchange that it is easy to overdo (over saturate) the colours when doing colourisation.

Richard

[Cowboyo Profile Website]

Ok i understand now