Adding color to old B&W

[ssim]

I have a bunch of old black and white photographs which I have scanned. I've seen some where skin color has been added to these. I'm really lost in trying to do this. I've tried to find a decent tutorial on this but so far the ones I have found, I haven't been able to get the results. I'm ok on fixing the cracks and spots on the images, its just the selective coloring and making sure that the skin tone looks somewhat natural.

Anyone have any suggestions.

For the record, here is the image that I am tring to work on. It is one of my mother from many years gone by.

http://upload.pbase.com/image/45597995.jpg

[CyberPet]

I'm gonna try to explain what I do....

I use the background copy, then I make a selection around the parts I want to colorize. Once it's selected I choose a small feather (just to soften the edges a bit) and while still selected I do Cmd-J (or Ctrl-J on a PC) to copy just the selected part on it's own layer. Then I go under Hue/Saturation, click the box for "colorize" and then start pulling the sliders to the colors I want. Then I continue to select from the background copy, make a new layer with that selection and color it as well.

This way it gets a feeling of hand colorized images, pretty cool in my point of view.

http://the-halls.se/edited/Colorize.jpg

[PacAce]

I take a different approach to my colorizing. I usually like to paint in my colors, using the colors that I think are appropriate for the different parts of the image. And to keep life simple for me, different parts of the image are worked on in their own indiviidual layers.

To colorize the picture of Sheldon's mom, I started by selecting the skin and then coloring that area. Instead of using a single color I worked with two colors, each in it's own layer (see 1st image below). The reason I did this is because skin tone is so difficult to get right. Using two different skin colors will allow me to vary the opacity of each to get the right combination of the skin color.

For the first layer, I chose a pinkish color. And for the second layer, I chose a "flesh" color.
I then set each of these layes to the "Color" blending mode.
I then varied the opacity of each layer until I was satisfied with the overall color.

I then selected the other parts of the image and colored them in a similar manner.

The first image below shows how I started out. And the second image shows my final image. When I had all the parts roughly colored the way I wanted them, I created a Hue/Saturation layer for each of the parts that needed further fine tuning.

In the image, Layer Set 1 contains all the color layers. I then duplicated this layer set and flattened it. I then used a curves adjustment layer to adjust the luminosity of the image and make it look less "colorized".

And finally, I applied whatever adjustment I would normally apply when working on an image, such as leveling, sharpening, etc.

[Edit: BTW, when working with the different parts of the images, you will undoubtedly be making selections for them. Make sure to feather the selection by 2 or 3 pixels, depending on the image size, and then save the selection as you'll probably be needing them more than once while you're working on the image.]
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[cmM]

leo, great job. Very impressing!

[ssim]

Wow, thanks to both of you. I'm about to try it on my own now.http://www.photography-on-the.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_confused.gif

[Mernya]

I work like Leo. For my grandparents, I worked the same way, except I got to ask them what colors things were.

My grandfather was in the 29th division for the Omaha Beach D-day invasion in WW2. Prior to moving into France, they were in St Ives, which is where he met my grandmother.

To get things right, I asked them questions on the colors of things (which, in my opinion, are odd). I looked at WW2 uniforms and I became the first grandchild to see my grandfather's medals to make sure I got everything right. For the buildings, I actually got help from someone still in St Ives. He sent me a bunch of pictures of the waterfront and I was able to match some buildings. When I showed my grandparents, my grandmother starting crying. That was just the digital proof! They now have the photo in their living room. My aunt had taken the original photo and just blew it up a few years ago. It was sepia-ish because the black and white had deteroiated. It also still had all the noise and scratches. I was able to give my grandparents a tint and a clean B&W.