Colorizing photos, First attempts

[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!

[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).

[Av8er]

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/

[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

[D_Conrad]

Well this is my attempt. Any constructive criticism or advice?

[acespast]

Excellent,well done,

[MANOUKA]

En France:
https://www.facebook.com/colorisationEddyParin/

[D_Conrad]

Those look amazing! I'll have to try to contact him thank you.

[D_Conrad]

So I fixed a portion of his leg and did another one of him. I'm quite enjoying doing these!

[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

[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.

[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 3879 times

Also WWII

colorized-00019848.jpg (68.26 KiB) Viewed 3879 times

[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.

[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

[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.