I have wanted to experiment and try my hand at creating surreal composite imagery, similar to that of Maggie Taylor so naturally the first step would be to learn how to add colour to black and white images and more Maggie style Daguerreotypes
Researching artists who specialise in colorising I found this world famous image
VIctory over Japan Day, Times Square, New York, 14 August 1945. Photograph: Alfred Eisenstaedt/Getty Images; colorized photograph by Sanna Dullaway
Now this image is no daguerreotype and appears to be in excellent condition but the amount of work painting the colours in particularly the skin tones result in a amazingly life like image. If this was not a world wide known image you wouldn't think twice that this has been colourised.
After being featured in the times magazine last year Dullaway told the magazine she started colourising a couple of years ago while listening to Rage Against the Machine's debut album, whose cover shows a celebrated Associated Press black-and-white picture of a self-immolating Vietnamese Buddhist monk. She wanted "to make the flames come alive" so colourised first them, then the whole picture. When she posted it on Reddit, it went viral. The rest is history, she has gone on to adding colour to photographs of Einstein, Audrey Einstein and Liz Taylor.
I found the image I am using for this tutorial here
Depending on the condition of the image and whether you wish to select the subject or keep it as the whole image it issometimes necessary to restore the old image before you can add colour.
I have added a few simple steps below on how to do this:
Step one:
With most old photographs they become faded and it is necessary for the contrast to be tweaked a little, this can be done by Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels. Click OK. If you drag the black level slider to the right this will darken the faded grey shadows, whn you drag th white levels slider to the left this will brighten any weak highlights and last but not least the grey slider, drag to the left to lighten the midtones
Step Two:
Flatten the image and create a duplicate of background layer by ctrl + j. Highlight the copy layer and go to Filter>Convert for Smart Filters. Click OK This turns this layer into a smart layer. You then need to select Filter>Noise>Dust & Scratches. Set Radius to 20 and Threshold to 15. Click OK.
Step Three: Now in order to use this smart filter you must disable the filter, as you can see by now all the scratches are filled in but the image is looking really blurry.Select the Layers Panel and click on the white Smart Filter layer and press Cmd/Ctrl+I to invert it. This allows the black pixels to block the filter on the image layer its attached to.You then need to use a small soft white brush and with the black filter selected paint over the areas on the image you wish to remove scratches from.
Step Four:
You may find that the more detailed areas that have patterns or textures become blurred using the above filter so this use the following technique:
Duplicate the layer the then right click the layer and rasterise. Using the content aware tool patch up the scratches with areas unharmed and close to the area in for repair
Step Five: To finish off I flatten the image and duplicate once more. I then go to Filter>Noise>Despeckle
Flatten and duplicate once again and go to Filter>Noise>Noise reduction
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| Before |
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| After |
Ok so the boring bit is done and the image is looking brand new almost! Now for the fun part, colouring in!
Step One:
The image should be open with one base layer. Duplicate this layer, this will be the layer we work on for the skin tone of the first child. Remember each layer will be for a different colour, this will allow you to go back and alter whenever you want, we will clearly label each new layer as we go along.
Name this layer skin baby.
Before colour film was invented photographers somethimes added washes to create skin tone on their images. I will try to recreate that in this tutorial.
Step Two:
Select Layer>New>Layer. Set the Layer’s Blend Mode to Colour. Now select your brush, i would recommend a soft brush, the size will depend on the size of the surface you are colouring in. Leave it at full opacity as you will be able to reduce the colours strength with the layers opacity rather than the brushes. Now you can either select a colour of your choice or do what I did and use the colour picker on another image to select the skin tone you want and use the same code for this image. I find you get a more natural tone that way.
Keep creating a new layer for each each new colour naming them as you go along, boy skin, boy coat, baby hair etc etc. REMEMBER to change the blend mode to colour each time you create a new layer.
NB: you may want to change the blend mode to luminosity when doin the whites of the eyes.
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| Original |
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| Colourised |
http://petapixel.com/2013/08/21/colorizing-photoshoppers-put-a-new-spin-on-old-historical-photos/
https://www.inkling.com/read/photoshop-elements10-barbara-brundage-1st/chapter-10/colorizing-black-and-white
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