1940 style colored portrait

mysteryscribe · Dec 31, 2006

Im toying with some ideas so i took a few minutes to tint an old black and white portrait. It's and old newspaper shot after the wedding kind of thing. It was originally black and white. I know terri hates these but I like them.

Just another poor to mediocre portrait from the old stuido.

terri · Jan 1, 2007

I know terri hates these but I like them.

You know I don't mind them, you nut. I'm just a traditionalist kinda hand coloring geek. :sexywink:

This one looks really nice, as a matter of face.

mysteryscribe · Jan 1, 2007

The reason you dont mind probably is subtle. I don't start with a color file and then delete color. What I do is start with a black and white film image. I colorize it just like you would with a brush or cotton ball just with digital color. At times I even overlay color or color with air brush instead of tint. Most colorised is either sick looking or garish. I try to avoid both.

However I have to agree most selective colors is pretty awful.

terri · Jan 1, 2007

It can be made to look garish or sickly when done with the real photo oils, too - it's all up to the person wielding the tube and cotton ball. :lol:

But, I know what you're saying about digitalized coloring and I agree - usually it's done in a subtractive way, which is not real "hand coloring", at all. I know you're shooting B&W and layering color with the help of a program, so yes, they usually look better to me than "selective" color deletion.

mysteryscribe · Jan 2, 2007

It is hard for me to find a name for this kind of thing. It truly is colorizing and I can Live with that. That name gets used for so many things this isn't, it's hard to accept. If I do a sepia treatment that is rightly called colorizing in my opinion.

This isnt hand tinting because I do it on a computer, but I tint each pixel more or less one at a tiime. So in some respects it is hand tinting with a computer mouse instead of a cotton ball and brush.

It isn't truly a tint because some of the time, at least, there is some pure color either mixed with or bridgeing the tint. To call it hand anything is misleading but to call it simply a color print, as one of the forums wants to classify it, is also misleading. I don't think calling is a color image is at all demeaning, it's just different. But since they put sepia in black and white its just confusing.

If you come up with a name let me know.