coloring a black and white photo

My mom asked me to scan an old pic of her. She joking asked about removing her glasses (in the photo) - so i did. While i was at it, i decided to try and color the photo.
It still doesn't look like a real photo - but i think it looks nice.

Whatya think?
Original pic (be nice, it's my mom)

no glasses, lots of color

All in all, it was about 2 hours of work.
A great learning experience. Anyone ever do this?

 

[bootymac]

Wow, that looks great (your coloured version)

 

[Anubis]

thats a badly taken photo, based on that it looks alright with what you have done

 

[sonambulo]

have to agree with anubis on this one. you did a really good job considering the original photographer.

 

[waggy]

yeah bad picture.

but not bad considering the orginal.

 

[Ness]

Grandpa, age 2.

Restored.


Other's grandpa's WW2 Baseball team

Almost halfway restored.

 

Originally posted by: Ness
Grandpa, age 2.

Restored.


Other's grandpa's WW2 Baseball team

Almost halfway restored.

thats good stuff

got any tips for me?

that baseball pic looks very challenging

 

[sonambulo]

that's really good, ness. what kind of setup you using?

 

[Ness]

Setup as far as system and software, or setup as in photos?

Just a normal AthlonXP System with photoshop. Nothing special here.

The first picture was about 3 x 5, I scanned it at 300dpi. The baseball picture is about the same, but it was scanned at 600dpi.

Troy: use the burn tool on her face to give it some more depth... mostly around the eyes and on the lips a bit.

You might also make the shadows out of black on a layer above and change the blending mode to "soft light", if you didn't put each colored object on a seperate layer.

Use Image >> Adjust >> Color Balance and play with everything until the tones seem a little bit more extreme. The more extreme the tone, the more recent the photo looks.

Get pictures to compare the tones with. Something will always look right if you don't have anything next to it to remind you that it doesn't. This is where the burn tool thing comes in again. Look at your own face in the mirror, and notice where there are highlights on your face, or darker areas. Adjust the brightness and contrast as well as the shadows and highlights on the color balance until these areas show up. If they don't dodge and burn the areas.

 

thanks for the tips
i don't know how to use dodge properly

i used burn a bit...but i tend to overburn when i burn so i use a darken brush or darken stamp instead

I'll keep practicing - but i'm very happy with my first b&w -> color