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BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: Traditional Film Photography

Photography Question 

Justin G. 		 

How does this look?


 
 
My first hand-tinting job...this photo was originally black and white Ilford FP4 and I scanned the neg on my computer and changed to RPB color and hand-painted everything. Any constructive criticism welcome! Rip me apart! Thanks.

justin.


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0 September 05, 2005

 

Justin G. 		 
 
 
Ok aside from the white streaks on her arm. I didn't notice those at first but I fixed them.


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0 September 05, 2005

 

Kerry L. Walker 		  I like the whole thing. It is a good pose and you did a good job hand painting it.


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0 September 06, 2005

 
- Craig m. Zacarelli

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Craig m. Zacarelli's Gallery 		  excellent... but it looks like you forgot the pants and the sandals!! YIKES! lol just kidding, you prolly wanted them that way.
Good Job! I just did a picture of the founder of our company..it was taken in the late 20's, I didnt trust it to run it through the scanner so I laid it out and took a picture of it then re colored it in PS CS and had no idea as to how or what I was doing but it worked out pretty good.

Craig-


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0 September 06, 2005

 

Justin G. 		  Black pants, black sandals.lol but thanks anyways craig. thanks for the advice. and actually I did color her feet too, but they were so bright from the strong sun that its hard to see the color.. if you need help on your coloring job or future ones just email me.

.justin. thanks again.


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0 September 06, 2005

 
- Dr Silly

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Dr Silly's Gallery 		  Justin, have only done selective coloring with PSE 3.0. Never took a B&W and colored it, but I think this came out great. As for her feet it looks like they run into the bottom of her pants. Looks like the bottom of the pants are white. I think for first time this is great.

Dr Silly


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0 September 06, 2005

 

Sandra 		  Justin,

I think it's great! Love the color.


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0 September 08, 2005

 

Alisha L. Ekstrom 		  Great work Justin. Like the pose & her smile is great. Out of curiosity with your photoshop did you use your paint tool or the history brush tool?


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0 September 08, 2005

 
- Craig m. Zacarelli

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Craig m. Zacarelli's Gallery 		 
 
 
Heres my first try...
Craig-


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0 September 09, 2005

 
- Craig m. Zacarelli

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Craig m. Zacarelli's Gallery 		 
 
  Harry Perrigo From Late 1920's
Harry Perrigo From Late 1920's

Craig m. Zacarelli

  
 
Heres my first try...
Craig-


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0 September 09, 2005

 

Justin G. 		  Craig, that looks pretty good, nice work!

Alisha, I practiced with two differnt things. I'm not a history brush fan myself, I personally don't like it, what I usually use is layer masks. You have an immense amount of control with these. But on this photo I used two different techniques.

The key to hand-painting is your blending mode. It needs to be in soft light. Also your image needs to be desaturated.

Method 1:
Create a new blank layer above the one you want to color. Click the brush tool and leave the settings alone on it (opacity at 100%, blending at Normal...) now what you do is set your blank layer to Soft Light. Now once you start painting, it should paint the color into the picture, keeping shadows and highlights. If you accidentally mess up, you can click your eraser tool and erase the paint.

Method 2:
Create a new blank layer above and select the color you desire. Fill (Alt-Bkspc) the layer with your color. Now the entire canvas will be your selected color, shouldn't be able to see your pic at all. Now set the blending mode to Soft Light. Now the entire photo should be tinted with your color. Click "add vector mask" (also called a layer mask) its at the bottom of your layers tab, and its gray with a white circle in the middle. Ok now that you've created the new layer mask, you won't see any differences to your photo but now see a white box next to the colored layer. Make sure the box is selected and fill this entire box with 100% black. This will "mask" out the coloring, and now your pic will look like you've done nothing. With the layer mask still selected paint with the brush tool in 100% white color where you want the color to be on your photo. You should see the color coming back where you painted. Oops you messed up, now just switch the color back to black and its just like erasing! Ok. I know this vector/layer mask thing sounds confusing but trust me, once you get the hang of it, its WELL worth learning (and BTW its really not that hard, so at least try it once!) Anyways you can also use this layer masking for a plethora of items such as Gaussian blur when you're blurring the background, painting someone's eyes or lips, fixing skin blemishes (using gaus blur again to smooth the skin), so many more things I could go on forever. Layer masks is one of the only things I use in Photoshop.
Basically in a nutshell what the layer mask does is hides the current layer where it's painted black and shows it where it's painted white. It's really a simple concept, just play with it a tad. P.S. You can also use black and white gradients on masking to get fading effects. It's really worth it, seriously, I wouldn't have typed up this whole big schpeal if it wasn't. Really try it.

For the Elements users, I've never used elements so I have no clue how much this goes over to elements. I use PS CS2.

Good luck!

.justin.


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0 September 09, 2005

 

Justin G. 		 
 
 
Ok I've made up a quick sample screenshot for you guys. Notice on the right in the layer mask box, you see that weird shape, and then you notice that the red is only painted in that same wierd shape where the white is. That's how layer masks work; hope this visual gives you guys a better understanding.


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0 September 09, 2005

 
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