My First Colour Restoration Project

[manthing]

my very first attempt at restoring colour to a b&w pic.

here is the original:




and here is the touched up one:




this is a work in progress.
i know i have to recolour the glass and the chair at the back.

otherwise, do you spot any mistakes?
anything out of place?

[lordsmurf]

Is her hair supposed to be purple?
His fingernails should be more pink/purple and less gray.
His lips should be red, not purple.

Aside from that quick observation, good job.
What method did you use?
(Note that I've been colorizing photos for about 11 years now.)

[ninjagirl]

The walls could do with more colour, looks like a 3d picture with the people being in colour and a B&W background, the door frame could do a fresh coat of paint make it look more realistic, just above the women the champagne ice bowl looks out of place and inside the doorway, its got a B&W feel. with a black and white shape just in the next room and just before the door the wall could do with more colour.

the couch could do with a bit more colour as well. something underneath her left ear, looks out of place and their is a spot of orange on her dress. sorry one last thing, the guy looks a bit pale, dont know if that is meant to be an old style kind of look on how they did it with transfer B&W to colour pictures or it could be just me.

The picture just dont pounce like it should cause of the background, apart from that, it is really good start. hope it helps in some way.

[manthing]

guys, thanks for your comments.

firstly, that is roger moore and elizabeth taylor - if those names / people mean anything to you. if not, oh well...

next, this was a first attempt and is a work in progress.

sure, those things you've pointed out needs working / tweaking.

for this attempt, i couldn't quite get the right pinkish / pale-ish shades that would have suited their skins better. so does roger look a bit jaundiced? then yes, his skin colour needs tweaking. liz's skin looks better, but could still be enchanced.

ninja - perhaps you're right about the walls and doorframe. they may look a bit soft or dull. but i think i'll leave those as is, as i want the characters to stand out against the background.

similarly the settee - didn't want to over colour that to detract from the characters.

champagne ice bucket - not too sure how to colour that.

liz's earrings - yes i suppose those could do with a different colour. or being removed altogether.

the orange spot on the red dress - ok that could be touched.

overall i didn't really want anything to "ping" off the screen. i wanted the more sort of muted colour palette. and on the whole i think that is what i achieved.

each to their own i guess.

but thanks for your comments anyway.

ls - i wanted a touch of blue in liz's hair. perhaps i have gone a bit too far. i blame the low brightness setting on my monitor for that mistake!

the other points you raise, i agree with.

to answer your question - i kept adding colour masks and then unmasking certain areas / spots and adjusting the colour levels and the opacity.

please let me know if there are other techniques i could employ to get nicer results.

perhaps you could do a walkthrough tutorial?

[lordsmurf]

Yeah, she's gone punk rocker.

[manthing]

ok, here's an attempt on a another pic...

before:



after:



this look good to you?

[wayshway]

Looking good. I restore pictures all the time but never got into the colorizing Black & White photos.

[manthing]

wayshway, top picture i manually coloured inside photoshop.

second picture, i used an app called "recolor".
it is quite useful, tough you have to be careful about colours bleeding into one another.

for example, look at cary grant's neckline area.
the blue from the shirt has contaminated / bled onto the skin area.

also, the rouge on whatshername (sorry forgot the lady's name!) is not quite rightly applied.

still, with proper usage, i'm sure we'd get better results.
or at least we can import the recolor-ed picture into photoshop and touch-up further, right?

[wayshway]

I'll have to try one day.