Restoration and advice please of Cnota

[Braban]

Good morning
I would greatly appreciate it if someone would fix and colourise this photograph, it is not of a direct family member, rather it is the late sister (Cnota) of my sister in law's mother in law who has been missing her sister alot today.

I would also really like to learn how to colourise photos properly for myself and would appreciate suggestions of online courses where I could learn how to do it and what software to use. I have photomyne which is sometimes good but mostly rather hit and miss. For example I tried to colourise this photo and she ended up with burgandy lips and was sat on black grass!

Thank you in advance

[japeflakes]

Using Photoshop Elements: Hand painted colours

[Braban]

Thank you!! She looks like Dorothy

[Ian Nelson]

Cnota in basic colours.  Using paint.net and sorting wee scratches and artificially  shading the sleeves and cropping the background you then save Cnota as a Background.  Add a Layer, and colour it in your choice and then Select Overlay, and move the Transparency Slider until you are satisfied and then OK it, and to merge the 2 Layers you Select Image, Flatten them, and Save it in which ever File Format you prefer.
You only used 75kb as a Jpeg to post it so you haven't given the restorers a lot to work their magic on.  If you want to Re-scan it at a Higher Resolution (dots per inch) and re-post it you would get better quality restores, cheers, Ian

[Braban]

Thank you, it is an interesting process seeing how the restorations and recolouring are done. Unfortunately I do not have the original. Best wishes Alison

[Trishanne]

Here is one from me. I only have an old programme to use and it is very basic.
Pat

[Braban]

Thank you, she is beautiful. I now know that this photo was taken in 1947

[tomkin]

             One from me

[Ian Nelson]

Free programs are GIMP, paint.net and Irfanview.  To colourise easily you need to use Layers. In my example Layer 2 is created by Block or Wash painting over Layer 1 (aka Background) and the Final Colour is a matter of Judgement by using the Opacity / Transparency values to see through the block colours to the Original Image in the background.  The variation in colour HUE comes from the different shade values in the background.  Once you have decided what end result suits you you must Merge or Flatten the Layers into One.  If you are going to Print the Image you should have more colour as your printing process won't reproduce your Screen colours, however, it is a matter of choice.  The ORIGINAL can be improved but MORE pixels help. (Dots per square inch - 300 is ideal).