Photo editing - b&w to color??

[Jeanne B]

This may be a really stupid question but can you take a b&w photo and turn it into color?? I have some professionally taken color and b&w photos and there are one or two b&w's in particular of my DD13 which I would love to have in color (I have ownership of the negatives BTW as well as a cd-rom of all the photos). I downloaded the trial version of Paint Shop Pro X and I see there's a restore feature but none of the b&w photos will even open. I get a pop-up message saying "color mismatch" and when the picture opens it's mostly black with a bunch of vertical lines across the picture.

 

[Master Mason]

Photoshop has colorization ability, but your never going to get true to life colors....

what I have seen done, is to turn all of the true black into a different color, and effects like that, it gives it style, but it won't colorize a black and white.

It can be done, See Ted Turner's colorizing old movies, but very few of us would have the time or resourses needed for that type of project.

One possible suggetion would be if you have a similar photo that was done in color you might be able to do some cloning type work... but that's just a guess from a photoshop amature.

 

[mecllap]

I think I saw a program at sams club the other day that said it would add color to B&W, but don't remember it's name. I was looking for one that would do the panorama stitching, which they had, but I haven't bought it yet. Check your local computer software stores (or search online for photo programs). It seems like it would be a tedious process, but who knows these days?

 

[elizke]

The restore in Paintshop is more to "unfade", not add color.

You can colorize but it's not an easy thing, and can be very time-consuming depending on how much detail is in the photo. You pretty much have to separate each thing into a different layer (his face, her face, his hair, her hair, his shirt, etc.) and colorize each, one by one, adjusting colors until they look right for each thing. It can be done and can even look quite good, but only with a lot of work!

As for the error you get when trying to open the pic, I have never seen that message before! Not sure why that would happen. Does it open in other programs on your computer?

 

[SWDopey]

There is a program available for colouring black and white photographs - I can't post the link yet, but it's called Recolored. Google it, and it should be top of the list. I've not tried it yet, although I've been meaning to, but it might be worth a shot. Other than that, you're down to recoloring it and employing a pro to do it.

 

[Charade]

http://www.recolored.com/

 

[Jeanne B]

Thanks for all the replies everyone!! I just downloaded a trial version of Recolored and it's pretty amazing what it can do to a b&w photo. I don't want to post the results yet because I still need to practice a bit more with it but it looks like it's going to do the job!!

 

[dcg0317]

Here's a picture of my grandmother and her students when she taught school at a one room school house in Il. I scanned it and then colorized it in photoshop CS2. It took some time to do and this was on a small file, it can be done but very time consuming. I also didn't have the problem of getting exact skin tone that you would need on a portrait. But it still looks fake. (Ted Turner).

 

[elizke]

Thanks for all the replies everyone!! I just downloaded a trial version of Recolored and it's pretty amazing what it can do to a b&w photo. I don't want to post the results yet because I still need to practice a bit more with it but it looks like it's going to do the job!!

Sounds interesting! Please do show what it can do once you're used to it.

 

[elizke]

Here's a picture of my grandmother and her students when she taught school at a one room school house in Il. I scanned it and then colorized it in photoshop CS2. It took some time to do and this was on a small file, it can be done but very time consuming. I also didn't have the problem of getting exact skin tone that you would need on a portrait. But it still looks fake. (Ted Turner).

What a great picture!! A real treasure. Where in Illinois was this schoolhouse? And I think you did a very nice job on the colorization.

 

[Charade]

As far as I can tell, that flag on the schoolhouse has just 48 stars on it.

Looks like the 20's based on the attire.

 

[dcg0317]

What a great picture!! A real treasure. Where in Illinois was this schoolhouse? And I think you did a very nice job on the colorization.

Thank you, On the back of the photo it says Meacham school, 1903. Which I believe was in Marion County, IL. It also has a song written by one of her students.