Colorizing photos

[Larrister]

Hello Ian,

Thanks for the tips. I am going to Photoshop now to try them out.

Larrister

[R MICHAEL]

hey guys great thread but, I have a question. I have photoshop 7 and can you colorise photos with it? I don't have a manuel and it kills me to read vast amounts of text on the PC... Mike

[i.spring]

Morning Mike, Adobe Photoshop 7 is almost identicial to 8,9, and i think 10 is out now as well!

Ok im going to have a bash at laying out the process for a fun evening and anyway im still kinda drunk from last night, so this should be interesting.

[i.spring]

ok for easyness sake, this is the patsy were going to do today boys and girls:

[i.spring]

(1) Open up the jpg file into Photoshop.
(2) Use the zoom tool to pick something to work on, in this case the front left wheel
(3) Use the polygonal lasso tool and carefully click all around the shape of the wheel.
(4) Ok then when youv lassoed the wheel, go up and copy and paste, this will bring just the wheel floating over the car as a new layer.
(5) Then when you have your new layer, click around the inside rim of the wheel with the lassue tool.
(6) Go to IMAGE - ADJUSTMENTS - COLOUR BALANCE
(7) Then this wheel looks like its in the sun, so bring up the yellow and then the red, so it looks more realistic
(8) Click ok and return to your work, CLICK - SELECT - INVERSE
Now your juts handling the outside rubber tyre, go back into the adjutsments and colour and bring up the red, it starts to look more real and dirty
(9) Click ok and go SELECT - DESELECT
(10 You have juts completed your first wheel.
(11) I recomment you keep the layers and dont flatten them , its better if you mess up later, remember to save your work as PhotoShop files and NOT JPG!

(12) Now click on the side panel your Layer 1 again with the full original image.
(13) We will now lassue the right wheel.
(14) Because the right wheel is broken in two by the cars fender, we will be clever, lassue the top part ,then hold down the button above Ctrl on your keyboard, your lassue tool will appear with a plus beside it.
(15) Then keep holding down that button, lassue the bottom part of the wheel.
(16) Ok you have now lassued the entire right wheel.
(17) Go back into Adjutsments and Colour Balance.
(18) Bring up the red until it looks exactly the same as the left wheel.
(19) A good TIP at this stage, dont go over-board with deep colours, keep everyhting mellow and soft.
You can go back latter and dakrne the whole image down and it looks much more cool.

(20) The white side paint work is juts screaming, do me, do me now.
so lets make her a red head, really 1920s 1930s racing through Berlin kinda thing.
(21) So go back and click on the original Layer 1.
(22) Lassue the side white panel.copy and paste.
(23) Go back into the Adjusments _Colurs and play around with what looks nice and period.
(24) actually the red looks a bit funky, so lets make it a yellow, if you want to deepen the yellow, go into ADJUTSMENTS - BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST and bring down the brigthness, then go back to the colour asjudtment after and bring up the yellow once again, it starts to look really nice, my one is amazing anyway!

(25) Just repeat that whole process on every magor Lego piece.
(26) Then when your sorta happy,AND YOUV SAVED IT! go to LAYER and at the bottom of the menu. FLATTEN IMAGE.
(27) Make sure you save this is a new file, so you dont loose all your work.
(28)

OK it would be really cool if some other forum members tried this out and well tried to compete with my masterpiece! kehee
Im taking a coffee break, well deserved i think and ill get back and add more insightful tips later today.

Have a great day guys!
Ian

[Ryan94]

Hello,

here's a photo I tried to colorize...
B/W photo:

Color photo:

Not the best one, but it's my first one...

Bye, David

[R MICHAEL]

looks pretty darn good to me! Hope my first effort looks so good...Mike

[Ryan94]

Thanks Mike...

It took about 5-7 hours... (don't know for sure) first of all the smaller jeep parts were hard to make.

And I'm currently making some colorizied photos from Stug soldiers...

[R MICHAEL]

i guess i am just a plain idiot... .... I guess you need to scan your photo as a color image to even have the ability to add color... I tried it on a jpeg that was scanned in greyscale and couldn't get color to come up... When I scanned one as a color image I got stumped on Atomic's step #4..... Arrrghhh!

[Thälmannpionier]

That really makes fun

Here's my first attemp..needed about an hour...it's not very good yet but "Practise makes the Master"
Could some of you colorizing Pro's give us Starters a kind of colour table?..
like for the Face use = +32 / +37 / -7...
Uniform....???
Eyes......???
silver buttons....???
Thanks
Andreas

Original

[Thälmannpionier]

please be gentle with me about the colours (Im a bit colour blind with red/green)

[R MICHAEL]

Here is my feeble first attempt... I am sure it can be done easier and I couldn't get my photoshop 7 to work the Atomicshift stated... thatnks for getting me started! enjoy....

[i.spring]

if anyone has any problems just tell me whats tripping you up! id be delighted to help.

Heres one of my first attemtps, enjoy.

Ian

[R MICHAEL]

Atomicmisfit, Great photo! I do have a question... #4 in your directions where do you to do the copy and past thing? Mike

[Thälmannpionier]

..2nd attempt...