Colourising the Kizmiaz way!

[kizmiaz]

Right, as I've been asked to do a tutorial on colourising (sorry to any Americans out there, but that's how I am going to spell it, except when talking about the Photoshop commands), here goes.

Apologies for long-windedness, repetition and obviousness. (This is my first time using Photoshop so the obviousness is for my benefit. I'm finding my way around the program as I go, so hope this works out!)
 
Start with a clean, repaired picture. Its far easier to repair a b&w or sepia picture and then colourise it than to repair a colour picture.
Open the picture and make sure it is in RGB mode (Image -> Mode -> RGB Color)
Next we need to create a duplicate layer to colourise.

Go to Layer -> Duplicate Layer. It doesn't matter what its called. Press OK. This will create a new layer (called Background copy in the Layers toolbox). This will be the "skin" layer.

To colourise it, go to Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation, or press CTRL and U. Make sure "colorised" box is ticked. (For the skin tone in this, I used Hue = 22, Saturation = 19, Lightness = 0). This will colour then entire layer.

[kizmiaz]

Now use the Lasso tool to select an area close to but not inside the face area. It doesn't matter how rough this bit is as long as you don't go too near the face. Go to Select -> Inverse and hit the Delete key. This should leave a roughly face-shaped and coloured area. Right-click and choose Deselect.

[kizmiaz]

Now use the Eraser tool to carefully remove all the rest of the unwanted area around the face. It is probably worth adjusting the size and hardness in the Brush drop-down box. This will soften the edge slightly and make the overall effect more natural.

[kizmiaz]

We now have a rather blank looking face. Some colour is needed to bring it to life. Select the Lasso tool and set Feather to 12. Now draw around areas on the side of the face down the temple, around the eye, over the cheek-bone and around the mouth and chin. Go to Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation, or press CTRL and U, making sure "colorised" is ticked, and set the Hue = 14, Saturation = 25, Lightness = 0. This should redden the cheek and side of the face and make it look more natural. Repeat for the other side of the face.

[kizmiaz]

That's pretty much all there is to it. The mouth can be selected with the Lasso set to a lower Feather level and coloured. The eyes can be done with a Feather of about 2, and low Saturation, and the iris can be coloured the same way. Its just a matter of experimenting with the Hue and Saturation to get a pleasing colour balance.

[kizmiaz]

Each layer is built up exactly the same. For this picture, I used a layer for the face (as above) another for the jacket including the medals, another for the hair, and a final layer for the background.

***NB. Before creating a new layer, make sure you click on the Background layer in the layers pallet. If you don't you will just create a duplicate of the last layer you were working on, not the whole picture. (Thanks, and apologies Keith)***

The nice thing about doing it this way is that if a layer looks too bright against the other colours, it can be softened by simply reducing the Opacity in the Layers toolbar. It saves a lot of hassle of re-selecting and re-colourising. Or conversely, the saturation can be increased to make it brighter without affecting everything else.

Once everything looks okay, go to Layer -> Flatten Image and then SAVE IT. Many's the time I've coloured a picture and got to the last stage, thinking "Phew, thats done!", closed the program and not accepted the changes! I think that is the situation swear-words were invented for!

Any questions, please let me know.

[Man of Kent]

Hi Kiz,
I couldn't locate "colourize",under image adjustments.
I assume "Elements" doesn't have the feature.

                                                          Merv

[kizmiaz]

Hi Merv,

I really am a complete novice at Photoshop. Tonight is the first time I've actually done anything at all with it so don't really have much clue what it does and doesn't do.

I only have Photoshop CS so I can't say which functions are not available, but I would think it highly likely that Elements does have a colorize function somewhere.

Hopefully someone else will be able to point us in the right direction.

Don't know if this is the right thing
http://www.webworksite.com/colorize_photo.shtml

[Man of Kent]

I've added it into faves, and will work my way through it.
Amazing stuff  though many thanks.