The hand-coloring gallery is the latest addition to the Reader Gallery pages. In fact I was quite surprised and inspired by the many examples reader's have sent me. You all have more patience than I do when it comes to hand-coloring! Congratulations and thank you all very much.

Hand Coloring • Page One
Hand Coloring • Page Two

Please mouse over an image to see the before and after.

Demetrio Mancini from Italy wrote:

Hi Katrin,

I would like to show you my first attempt to photo retouching and colorization after I read your wonderful book.

This is a 1964 photo of my mother, Graziella, when she was 18 years old. I used a lot of your techniques described in the book, first to repair wrinkles and stains, and then to colorize the photo. After I scanned the photo, I converted it to grayscale with 'Channel Mixer', then I used the 'Clone stamp', 'Healing brush' and 'Patch tool' for repair. I add some details in the eyes and the lips painting with 'Dodge' and 'Burns' tools. Then I used 'Levels' and 'Curves' adjustment layers to increase the contrast. When I was satisfied with the corrections, I added colors with 'Color Fill' layers set in Color blending mode and painting with white in the layer's masks.

Layers palette (37 Kb): http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/demex/graziella/graziellaLayers.gif

The image above is my latest job with Photoshop. It has a lot of work as you can see. It was the addition of color that took more time and effort. There are dozens of layers for every colored element. For instance I used different colors for the flesh on some parts such as the cheeks, the lips, the tongue. I decided to substitute the background. I also added several shadows. The original high resolution photo also had a horrible problem of texture which cannot be seen in this reduced image. I was able to reduce it, and even add some focus. I still have so many things to learn, specially with color and light (I have no idea of photography). This program is always challenging. I'm eager to have more and more photos to retouch, specially now that I'm learning so many useful skills from your book.

Regards! Jose Luis

Hello Katrin,

I want to thank you very, very much for your fantastic book "Photoshop Restoration and Retouching". It's a great source of tips and profound knowledge to me which I won«t miss anymore. It«s not just another simple manual of Photoshop and it's functions, but rather a superb tutorial how to work with Photoshop in that very special environment of digital photography and scans.

As a little evidence I sent you a picture of my parents. This picture was shot about 40 years ago and is originally b/w picture (or better said a brown and beige picture after all those years). As you see I colored it - and as I think, it«s not too bad for my first great project with PS. When I finished this picture, I could understand, what you meant, when you talked about the meaning of personal pictures for oneself and how important they are to understand who you are and where you come from. I«m curious to see my mother's face when I present this picture to her next month on her 60th birthday.

Thank you,
Frank Eirund
Munich, Germany

Hi Katrin,

A little background on this project. I decided to bring this old family photo from the early 1960s into the modern times of color. I did not have any color information about the people and their clothes and skin color, so I had to guess. I also guessed on the parts of the house and yard decorations. I used adjustment layers on each of the people and the non-people objects and also created layer groups for each person to keep things organized. Once I completed the colorizing process, I went into the curves and levels tools and adjusted them just right. This was a fun project to work on, but it took me a little over a month, although the results were quite pleasing for those family members who are still alive that were in the picture.

Thanks for your help,
Scott

Restoration by Susan Charnock

Lorie Zirbes is a wonderfully talented and generous professional retoucher with numerous examples in the Reader Gallery, including these four excellent examples of hand-coloring. Lorie's website is www.RetouchingByLorie.Com

Hallo Frau Eismann,

Ich mšchte Ihnen kurz eine Arbeit von mir vorstellen, die ich in den letzten Tagen durchgefŸhrt habe. Ein Schwarzwei§ Bild, da§ ich vor einigen Jahren aufgenommen habe, sollte auf Wunsch zu einem Farbbild umgewandelt werden. Zuerst habe ich das Motiv von seinem Hintergrund freigestellt. Dann den Kšrper etwas gedreht. Danach mit mehreren Farbebenen und Verrechnungsmodis, die einzelnen Farben aufgetragen. Zum Schlu§ das Bild partiell etwas geschŠrft.

Mit freundlichen Gr٤en aus Saarlouis,
Dieter Walter

Rough Translation:

Hello Ms. Eismann,

I would like to quickly show you some of my recent work that I did in the last few days. It started with a black and white picture that I took a few years ago and for the fun of it I turned it into a color photograph. I started by separating the subject from the background and I turned the body a bit. After that I used numerous Color Fill layers set to Color and Multiply blending mode to add the individual colors. In the end I applied some partial sharpening.

With friendly greetings from Saarlouis,
Dieter Walter

By Jim Colon
Hand Coloring • Page One
Hand Coloring • Page Two