Selective Coloring - Self Portrait

bdemers · Jan 26, 2005

This was a self-portrait taken after a long day of skiing. I held the camera myself, and shot it in b+w.

I was bored one day, and tried adding color in Photoshop. It's not the best picture to start with, but it was the only true b+w I had at the time.

I guess i'm looking more for comments on the colorizing than on the composure of the picture, since it wasn't intended to be serious.

This is an UPDATED version (new eye color)

(oh, and yes, the background was intentionally left in a warm b+w tone)

mentos_007 · Jan 26, 2005

for me the skin color is perfect but something's wrong with your eyes

bdemers · Jan 26, 2005

I know what you mean,

my eyes are a strange color of hazel.

All of the colors in this picture were extracted from other pictures of myself, with the intention that they would be true-to-life. My guess is that the strange natural color of my eyes, plus the colorization process makes it come out looking wrong or unnatural

Alison · Jan 26, 2005

I think you've done an amazing job. Your eyes do stand out as being a bit different, but I can't say that I dislike the way it looks. I really like the tone that you've created here. What kind of process did you use and how long did it take?

photong · Jan 26, 2005

Awesome job on the skin

The eyes look...weird (not a bad thing.) Are they really that colour? They look like some wierd yellow/light gold colour or is it just me?

Good overall job. I like the way you made the BG.

bdemers · Jan 26, 2005

Well, I've been working on this little by little over time, so I don't know exactly how long it's taken me. This is my first attempt at adding color, so it's been a bit hit-or-miss experiment process.

I created individual layers for each type of color (skin, hair, etc.) I selected colors from existing pictures, and painted them on with various brushes. For instance, although the skin is just painted flat, the eyebrows are done with a brush designed to simulate grass... it gives it a bit more of a "scattered" look I've found. After that, I'd apply a gaussian blur to each coloring layer, which smoothes out the edges and makes it look less "painted on." You can notice the result specifically in the edge of the lips.

Finally, I made the colored layers "overlays" in "blending properties" and adjusted the opacity until it looked to be natural as I saw it.

Oh, and I forgot... before I began, i changed the color balance on the b+w so it looked a little less "stark".

I've had a lot of fun with this technique, if anyone wants to try and needs help, let me know!

trodgers · Jan 27, 2005

the coloring is excellent -- it looks like you selectively took out all color information EXCEPT your face. well done.
the eyes are a little distracting, but not so much that it takes over the image.
the only problem i have with this is that your head (on the left) looks like it was pasted in.
other than that, great job.
t.r.

bdemers · Jan 27, 2005

Thank You,

In case anyone is interested, here is the original that I worked from (resized)

JonMikal · Jan 27, 2005

excellent coloring! post a color pic of your eyes for us to compare

bdemers · Jan 27, 2005

Here you go, a self-portrait from last year... the lighting was lacking

When I did the colorization, i used the "ink dropper" tool to select true colors from other photos. This was the photo I used for eye and skin tones. I admit, it does look a bit different, more gray and less green. I'm not sure how that happened. Perhaps I don't have the eye tone transparent enough...