Colouring a greyscale image

[Goofball Jones]

There are several ways to skin this cat...one way that has worked for me quite a bit is to use a "colorize" layer so that anything painted on it will colorize the grayscale beneath it. Also in this way you can use any color in any combination on that layer to get the color you wish...with the grayscale actually giving you the values of that color.

And with this method you can then paint in what you want and what you don't want with total control.

[[MM]]

yeah, I did that already, and works in someway...

The problem still concern the "feeling" of colors

here's an example

this is the image I want to colorize:
http://www.faindfiles.com/MM/images/cgtalks/face/1.gif
I made a color layer, with 100%opacity and flow, and on that I applied the colors of the original image
http://www.faindfiles.com/MM/images/cgtalks/face/4.gif
this is the result
http://www.faindfiles.com/MM/images/cgtalks/face/2.gif
wich is not right amazing, considering what the image was before:
http://www.faindfiles.com/MM/images/cgtalks/face/3.gif


My picture looks like a colorized frame of a Stan&Ollie show.

It's a matter of colour management and/or illumination?
Or there are other better techniques?

[Goofball Jones]

OK, try this instead. Use Hue/Saturation correction layers for your image.

Pick a color of the overall flesh you want for the picture. Then add a hue/saturation correction layer and click on "colorize"...then adjust the levels to get a good overall look for your flesh...then layermask out the areas you don't want affected by that. Then repeat on different areas. You'll get better control over the saturation, hue and brightness this way, but it's more involved then the first way I suggested, which is really a quick and dirty technique.

Again, many different ways to approach this. Let me know if this one helps.

[[MM]]

Then add a hue/saturation correction layer and click on "colorize"...

man I tried to find thoose but I have only a hue and another saturation layer, (2 different ones) and I havent found any colorize button, I got only the "color overlay" in blending options, wich still works good too also bercause you can regulate the opacity and fill from the layer directly

So howhever thanks for the inspiration ^_
I'm continuing to search that colorize button etc, ah my photoshop is CS (8.0)

[Goofball Jones]

It's in the adjustment layers. You have your regular layer you're going to be working on, at the bottom of the layers window you have a button that is "create new fill or adjustment layer". Click on that to bring up the menu...then go down to the "hue/saturation" and click on that. it will create a new adjustment layer and the hue/saturation/lightness sliders and down at the lower left corner you have "colorize" and "preview". Colorize is usually default to off, so go ahead and click on that. Then you can work from there and mask things out using the new adjustment layer you just created.

Hope this helps.

[[MM]]

Gorgeus: I made it!!
Thats quite slow but its ok so far....

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[[MM]]

Now I heard about some professional plugins that could be handful to color and maybe add some realistic-mask features to add to my black and white pencil made drawings (like they were made with painter maybe) and pixel-art style stuff too (Im making some mix-experiments with light and smoke/fog effects too)

Has someone ever used (or simply knows) some of these right plugins?
I never searched such things, and I really have no clue about where start and how... I'm finding so much random stuff wich I'm testing that wichever notice could save me lots of searching and testing hours ^_

Thank you,

[malcolmvexxed]

haven't used the plugins. personally i use the hue/saturation > colorize feature almost exclusively. i find a lot of the plugins end up making you think about the bells and whistles when a lot of the older photoshop tools will just let you do what you want and focus, so the result is better.

[[MM]]

Yeah, I tried use some of them but now I have the same idea....

[nebezial]

i usualy go with overlay , color , soft and hard light modes, link to my works here and ull see ho well it works, and inn my opinion that is by far the best way to acchieve the realistic skin shading, and without layers

[[MM]]

Your images looks great!

i usualy go with overlay , color , soft and hard light modes,

You mean the mode in the brush settings?

If you mean that, I've tried those before but I really dont understand the main theoretical difference between using the hue/saturation correction layer and the colorizing brushes (brush modes), even the result looks different

[malcolmvexxed]

i usualy go with overlay , color , soft and hard light modes, link to my works here and ull see ho well it works, and inn my opinion that is by far the best way to acchieve the realistic skin shading, and without layers

If you mean that, I've tried those before but I really dont understand the main theoretical difference between using the hue/saturation correction layer and the colorizing brushes (brush modes), even the result looks different

well he's just giving you the range that you canfind in rendering an image in gray scale and then hand colorizing using a brush as opposed to using selections (which i assume you'd be doing with hue/saturation. ther'es more control in using the brush but i find personally that if you're rendering in grayscale you're already getting your tone set before you colorize it anyway, so you don't need a lot of variety like overlay and light modes. for later correction purposes layers are still the best way to go.

[[MM]]

alright, I got it.

I'm in the right mood and focus with those ways now

thanks everyone, you've been very helpful

see ya around here!

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