8mm Forum: Colorizing with Photoshop

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Topic: Colorizing with Photoshop

Christian Bjorgen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 996
From: Kvinnherad, Norway
Registered: Oct 2009

posted December 15, 2009 04:15 AM

I know that colorization is a touchy subject in the film industry (colorized version of Casablanca *shrug*) but it's really fun to do if you like photo editing and have interest in film aswell.

I've done it loads myself, and thought I would post an example of simple colorizing for you to see.

http://bjoergen.org/vault/Mickeycolorization.jpg

The picture on the left is the original B/W frame I found on Google. The middle one is the colorized version before filtering the image, and the right image is the final, filtered and colorized version.

This job was done by me in less than one hour, and if you put some time into, you can make it look really good.

Currently, I'm colorizing "Who's on First?" frame-by-frame, purely for the fun of it.

If you like what you see, I will post a guide here on how to colorize yourself, and what program you should use.

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Well who’s on first? Yeah. Go ahead and tell me. Who. The guy on first. Who. The guy playin’ first base. Who. The guy on first. Who is on first! What are you askin’ me for? I’m askin’ you!

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Trevor Adams
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 763
From: Auckland,New Zealand
Registered: Jun 2003

posted December 15, 2009 04:33 AM

Looks great!Please keep me informed.Trev

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Trevor

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Graham Sinden
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1131
From: Kent, UK
Registered: Aug 2005

posted December 15, 2009 06:27 AM

I agree looks great, I think the middle pic is the best. I once took a B/W photo of Joe Davis playing snooker and turned that into a colour image using Paint Shop Pro and a lot of cutting and pasting. Final result was good but was a long winded method.

I would love to colourize some a film footage clip just to see what it would look like in colour, Is there software that can help or is it a case of frame by frame which would take ages.

I agree its a touchy subject but if companies didnt do it we would never see what it would have looked like if shot in colour even if I still prefer the original B/W.

Is colourizing movie footage easy enough for me to try?

Graham S

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Christian Bjorgen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 996
From: Kvinnherad, Norway
Registered: Oct 2009

posted December 15, 2009 06:34 AM

If you've already done it with Paint Shop then you should learn the method with Photoshop very quickly as the programs are somewhat similar.

So yes, it should be easy enough for you to do without problems, but it will take some practice before you do it fast and effectively.

I've done it for maybe 1,5 years now, and I colorize quite quickly now (example picture took me about 50 minutes to colorize), while in the beginning it could take me 2-3 hours for the same picture, with a lesser result aswell.

But I have no means of doing it for an entire film yet.

I'll post a guide sometime today or tomorrow [Smile]

--------------------
Well who’s on first? Yeah. Go ahead and tell me. Who. The guy on first. Who. The guy playin’ first base. Who. The guy on first. Who is on first! What are you askin’ me for? I’m askin’ you!

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Graham Sinden
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1131
From: Kent, UK
Registered: Aug 2005

posted December 15, 2009 06:52 AM

Yes Christian I would be interested in a guide. It was a long time ago that I did that picture and may not have used the software in the best way. If I remember I made the whole picture one colour then say highlighted the mans jacket, cut it out, then opened up the original B/W file and pasted it on that in the same position. It was a lot of opening and closing of the image. Much easier it would be to just highlight an area and change the colour but my old computer was not that good and this didnt seem to work that well so used the former method.

How was the Laurel and Hardy's colourized? Was that frame by frame or did clever software track an object in the film as it moved in the picture to make the process much quicker? I cant imagine they used photoshop?

Graham S

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Christian Bjorgen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 996
From: Kvinnherad, Norway
Registered: Oct 2009

posted December 16, 2009 11:44 AM

Hi!

When using Photoshop to colorize, there is no cutting or pasting involved at all, but a lot of selection and colour adjustments.

First, I select an area using one of the selection tools, for examble the subjects shoes, then I use the color adjustment, with the option "Colorize" enabled, and then use three selectors (Hue, Saturation and Lightness) to find the colour I want.

For Laurel and Hardy they probably didnt use Photoshop, but I think they did it frame-by-frame, as tracking an object in B/W can be quite tricky. You also get a better result when doing it frame by frame.

--------------------
Well who’s on first? Yeah. Go ahead and tell me. Who. The guy on first. Who. The guy playin’ first base. Who. The guy on first. Who is on first! What are you askin’ me for? I’m askin’ you!

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