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Colorizing photos, First attempts
Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 8:25 am
by D_Conrad
Hello, I have a photo of a Vet I would like to have colorized for him. His name is Al and he completed 35 missions as a ball turret gunner in a B17 "the latest rumor" does anybody here have experience colorizing? I have photoshop but have never done colonizing and would like it to look good for him. There are 2 photos. One of him by the turret and one of his plane. Thank you!
Re: Colorizing a photo?
Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 2:38 pm
by Cal.Bar
My wife wanted to fix up a picture and she crowd sourced it to her local neighborhood board and people did all kinds of things to it and it turned out great. You may want to consider finding a photography forum or adobe photoshop forum and upon joining, post the picture and ask if someone might want to work on colorizing it for you (with or without compensation).
Re: Colorizing a photo?
Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 2:49 pm
by Av8er
D_Conrad wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2019 8:25 am
Hello, I have a photo of a Vet I would like to have colorized for him. His name is Al and he completed 35 missions as a ball turret gunner in a B17 "the latest rumor" does anybody here have experience colorizing? I have photoshop but have never done colonizing and would like it to look good for him. There are 2 photos. One of him by the turret and one of his plane. Thank you!
Here is a link explaining the colorizing process using Photoshop from the US Militaria Forum:
http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/ ... photoshop/
Re: Colorizing a photo?
Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 5:00 pm
by D_Conrad
Thank you both I appreciate it! In going to give it a shot myself but still reach out to someone with past experience
Re: Colorizing a photo?
Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2019 4:05 pm
by D_Conrad
Well this is my attempt. Any constructive criticism or advice?
Re: Colorizing a photo? First attempt
Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2019 10:24 pm
by acespast
Excellent,well done,
Re: Colorizing a photo? First attempt
Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2019 1:09 pm
by MANOUKA
Re: Colorizing a photo? First attempt
Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 11:14 am
by D_Conrad
Those look amazing! I'll have to try to contact him thank you.
Re: Colorizing a photo? First attempt
Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:08 pm
by D_Conrad
So I fixed a portion of his leg and did another one of him. I'm quite enjoying doing these!
Re: Colorizing photos, First attempts
Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 6:58 am
by jkillelea
Try adding a little pink to the flesh tone to separate it from the brown nearby. And put a little more green into the grass in the background. Play with the luminosity overall. It will bring it alive a little more. Brown jacket is spot on!
John
Re: Colorizing photos, First attempts
Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 6:37 pm
by D_Conrad
Thank you I appreciate the advice I will definitely try that. I am meeting with him in the morning and already have them printed unfortunately but I will maybe get him better versions when I can.
Re: Colorizing photos, First attempts
Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 9:49 pm
by YLG80
Congratulations for you first colorized photo. Nice job !
Here you have also many WWI professionally colorized photos.
The author name is Tom Marshall
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... enary.html
Go to
https://mediadrumimages.com and enter Tom Marshall in the search box.
You will see his collection of colorized photos.
Yves
Credit Tom Marshall
https://mediadrumimages.com
WWI

- colorized-00006597.jpg (82.29 KiB) Viewed 3880 times
Also WWII

- colorized-00019848.jpg (68.26 KiB) Viewed 3880 times
Re: Colorizing photos, First attempts
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2019 7:28 am
by D_Conrad
Started work on another photo of a veteran I recently met with. Any suggestions on what I should work on? It's not done and there are obviously portions I have not touched, but for what is done I'm looking for any advice.
Re: Colorizing photos, First attempts
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2019 8:31 am
by jkillelea
Hi D,
Nice job so far. And wonderful thing to spend your time doing. My suggestions:
1. Your sky is too green, and doesn't look real. I would find a photo of actual sky which may or may not have some clouds but could/should have some graduation of value (darker above, lighter below) You can steal a section of that sky and strip it into the shot if using photoshop. You just don't want to have the sky take over the picture, as it's not the subject of the photo.
2. The plane looks fine. You may want to think about the bomb color and MAY want to intensify the color. We flew on the B24 Witchcraft this summer and the bombs are a brighter color than what you have. Personal preference.
3. Flight jacket color is spot on. I would maybe bring up the saturation of that color a little. If you look at the brown of actual flight jackets you may want to do this. Also, leather, being what it is, has a bit of shine on some warn areas. I might touch up a few spots where the sun/light reflects or "kicks" back. This would be a time consuming fine detail.
4. The flesh doesn't look like living flesh. This is where you need to do some work. I might use a photo of a person that you have already and compare skin colors. If you look at the photo above your posting, you see a pilot climbing in to a fighter plane and the skin looks alive. If you study it carefully, you'll also see the reflecting of light off shiny areas. This makes the photo sparkle.
Good luck. I love the work you're doing.
John
Re: Colorizing photos, First attempts
Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2019 8:38 pm
by D_Conrad
Thank you very much! I will definitely work on those and repost an updated version if I can pick your brain when I update it I'd appreciate it.