Colorization Tutorial, Part 2 Coloring Vintage Black & White Sports Photos Gary P. Chanko

We begin Part 2 by assessing the remaining colorization tasks and organizing an approach.

Planning the Approach Looking at the image we see six major components that remain to be colorized as illustrated below. Ballpark structure Railings Folding Chairs

Chain link fence

Concrete wall

Grass

Let’s develop a plan for finishing the balance of the image by surveying the photo and making note of the potential layers we’ll require: ‣

Railings - looks to be painted, maybe the same color as the seats

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Folding Chairs - appear to be all the same color. Maybe an opportunity to combine with Railings on same layer

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Chain Link Fence - looks like typical galvanized fencing; a potential problem area because it obstructs coloring the folding chairs behind it

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Concrete Wall (and the concrete portion in the seating area)

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Ballpark Structure in the background - in very deep shadows; recall in Part 1 we noted we wouldn’t try to colorize this area.

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Grass - appears to be all grass

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Colorizing the Railings and Chairs The railings provide an opportunity to introduce a new technique for painting straight lines. You could, of course, colorize the railing using a steady freehand. There’s a much faster method that gives great results. Several programs allow you to draw or paint a straight line by holding down the shift key while moving the mouse. Typically you click where you want the line to start, hold down the Shift key, and then click at the end point of the line. Your image editor may work differently. Test to verify the correct method for painting straight lines. To begin 1

Create a new layer and label Railings & Chairs. It appears we can colorize both on the same layer. If later we decide that wasn’t a good idea, we can edit the layer and separate the two components.

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Set the Blend Mode to Overlay and adjust the Opacity to about 75%.

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Select a soft tip Brush like the one used for most of Part 1 and reduce the Strength to about 90%. Select a Red color, something a bit different from what was used for the uniform. The RGB value used in the tutorial is R135, G25, B0.

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Now begin to paint the Railings using the straight line method described above. Resize the Brush so that it’s about the same diameter as the Railing. Just follow the Railing sections completing straight line segments. Some areas may require you to zoom in and paint freehand, but most can be completed using a straight line technique. Use the Eraser tool to fix any mistakes.

Click here to start

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Click here to end

Zoom back out and inspect your work. Look for any segments you might have missed. Make any Opacity adjustments and get set to start on the Chairs. For the Folding Chairs (actually located in the Box Seat section of Connie Mack Stadium, where this photo was taken) we will be using the same layer and brush set up. You also be using the straight line painting method for the Chair legs along with some freehand to colorize the seat backs.

Zoom in and out as you start painting to identify the location of the Chairs. In some areas of the image it may be difficult to distinguish between concrete and Chairs, so work carefully. Now you may be asking yourself about that Chain Link Fence. The chairs are in back of the fence and painting around the fence doesn’t seem practical. We’ll handle that problem later, but for now don’t worry about the fence. Just paint over it as you colorize the chairs.

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Before beginning with the chairs, take a look at the screen shot below. You can get an idea of how the straight line method was used to paint many of the chair legs.

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Finish painting the chairs, inspect for mistakes and misses, and perform any opacity adjustments as usual. Now we have to deal with the troublesome chain link fence. The bad news is removing all that red paint is a bit tedious. The good news is you’re unlikely to run into this situation again. At least you’ll have a method to deal with problems like this in the future. Yes, the solution is going to require you to do a bit of erasing. So grab the Eraser tool.

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Zoom in to a high magnification level similar to the screen shot below. Resize the eraser tool to match the width of the fence. Start to erase. I thought about using the straight line method but soon discovered the fencing wasn’t always straight.

A segment I missed!

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A freehand method seemed to work the best. It really doesn’t take too long to complete erasing the fence, just work methodically completing small sections at a time. When you’re finished erasing, zoom back out and check for anything that was missed.

Colorizing the Concrete Wall Yes, concrete, weathered concrete, is ordinarily gray. The concrete in the black & white photo is already that color. However, just as we painted previously the photo’s “black” shoes in Part 1, we’re also going to paint the “gray” concrete gray. 1

Create a new layer and label Concrete Wall.

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Set the Blend Mode to Soft Light and adjust the Opacity to about 80%.

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Select Black as the color. Use the same soft tip Brush and reduce the Strength to about 50%.

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Now begin to paint the concrete wall and portions of the steps in the seating area. Use the straight line method along the top and bottom sections. When complete your work should look similar to the screen shot below:

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Finally adjust the layer Opacity to suit your eye.

... And that Chain Link Fence The railings, but not the fence itself, will also benefit from a touch of color. Use the same setup prepared for the Concrete Wall layer and continue painting the posts and railings. Use the straight line method.

Colorizing the Ballpark Structure We noted back in Part 1 the background portion of the ballpark was in deep shadows and there wasn’t much we could do with this area. We can, however, deepen the blacks and at the same time add a little contrast to the entire seating area and concrete steps. To do this we’ll follow the same colorizing method used for the Concrete Wall layer. 1

Create a new layer and label Ballpark Structure.

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Set the Blend Mode to Soft Light and adjust the Opacity to about 75%.

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Select Black as the color. Use the same soft tip Brush and reduce the Strength to about 30%.

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Resize the Brush to a fairly large diameter and to paint over the areas illustrated in the screen shot below. A couple of quick strokes through the area should do it. Don’t try to paint to close to the player, just follow an outline around his shape.

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Brush a few strokes through this area

The result will look something like this:

Colorizing the Grass I find colorizing grass, trees or any background greenery is a challenge. Too often the color tone looks unnatural or has a dull, flat artificial appearance. I discovered that a little overpainting can improve the appearance of grass and any background greenery. For this image I started with a green color tone that matched what I expected for a ballpark. I probably tried a half dozen colors before ending with R 50, G 80, B30. Adjusting the layer Blending Mode to Overlay seemed to produce decent results. 1

Create a new layer and label Grass.

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Set the Blend Mode to Overlay and adjust the Opacity to about 85%.

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Select a color for the grass or use the RGB values listed above. Use a soft tip Brush and adjust the Strength to about 80%.

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Paint the grass area and adjust the layer opacity so the grass begins to look natural. It will still have a monotone appearance. We can improve the appearance by overpainting with another color.

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Open the color palette and select a green tone with a bit of yellow, something close to this:

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Still working on the Grass layer, select a Brush like the one used for the player’s hair in Part 1 and set the Strength to 20%. Paint the two areas outlined in screen shot below using several short strokes. Don’t over do it; add just a hint of color.

Add a few quick strokes in these circled areas

That’s it. The grass will now have a few areas of different shades that give a more natural appearance. You can continue to experiment further with adding touches of different green shades here and there. Fine tune the Blend Mode Opacity adjustment until your satisfied with the result. Time to zoom back out to full frame and inspect your completed image. It should look good; maybe great. If you’re pleased with the result, your finished and ready to move on to another colorization project!

Some Final Tweaks You may still want to make a few final adjustments. Say you didn’t look the look of the grass color tone; it needs a slight color adjustment. Perhaps the skin tone looks a tad washed out and needs more saturation, or needs a drastic color tone change. Because all our work was performed on individual layers, we can make subtle adjustments to specific parts of the image. You can, of course, combine all the layers and then make adjustments that will affect the entire image. Sometimes this works fine, but often it ‘s preferable to constrain these final adjustments to specific layers.

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Your image editor will have a wide selection of various adjustment tools and functionality that can be applied to each layer. I recommend investigating the tool options and do a little experimenting. A sampling of some final tweaks you may want to investigate: ‣

Adjusting Skin Tones Your image editor may have a tool specifically designed for skin tone adjustments. Check it out and see if the results improve your completed work.

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Hue and Saturation Hue and Saturation adjustment tools are common features for image editors. You should try these adjustments for layers that you want to improve a specific color tone.

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Brightness and Contrast These adjustment tools work similarly to Hue and Saturation. Use them on specific layers.

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Levels If you are experienced with using Levels to make image adjustments, you can also use this sophisticated tool on individual layers to make very subtle changes.

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Auto Correction Tools Finally, most image editors have a variety of auto correction tools that require only a single mouse click. I find these tools give uncertain results. They are worth trying but don’t always expect the best results. This completes the colorization tutorial. At the beginning I suggested that after completing this tutorial you’d be equipped to tackle any black and white digital image. Hopefully you found the tutorial a benefit and gained confidence to work on future colorization projects.

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