Christian Photographers Community

Does anyone know what is involved in or how to put color into a black and white image.  I'm not looking to make a B&W photo color, I have a picture of a little girl and I want to make her sweater colored(pastel i think).

Do you use Photoshop or something like that? If not, download Irfanview (www.irfanview.com) for an easy to use image editor and viewer. You should be able to do what you want with it.

I'm wondering about something:  are you talking about a colour picture that was converted to b/w, and now you want a selected portion (sweater) to get back colour?  If so, you could selectively desaturate the coloured picture and end up with one that is b/w except for the colour or the area that you wish to keep in colour.  You could also work with layers and selectively keep areas coloured, other areas b/w.  There are a number of ways to convert an image to b/w while keeping one (or more than one) area coloured.

If you do not have a colour version (just the b/w picture), I don't know, but I think you probably could carefully select the area you wish to have coloured, possibly feather by a couple pixels (very little feathering), then use any of your colour changing tools (color correction, color balance, even levels or gamma, or hue/saturation/lightness or others like that) to "colourize" the area.  I just tried this here on a b/w picture of a picnic bench covered with snow, with some trees around and behind the bench - I selected the snow on top of the table and coloured it salmon.  It looks pretty weird.

It would help to know what image editing software you're using.  I use Paint Shop Pro.  If I can help in any other way, feel free to email (ursula-abresch@shaw.ca).

Ursula

I just use the paint tool to color a b/w or you can desaturate the color like Ursula mentioned.

Quote from: thedimlers on December 06, 2004, 05:44:22 PM
Does anyone know what is involved in or how to put color into a black and white image.  I'm not looking to make a B&W photo color, I have a picture of a little girl and I want to make her sweater colored(pastel i think).

What program do you use to edit your photos?

Sonja, if you use the paint tool to colour a b/w, how do you get the nuances?

 nuances?? What is that?

I mean, the shades of colour.  When I use the paintbrush, the colour comes out rather solid looking, without all the shading.

I've been working on this.  Thank you for the advice.  I will post a before and after in my gallery.  Let me know your thoughts as this is my first attempt.

Hi Ken...

Just in case folks don't go to the gallery, it might be nice if you post the before and after in here.

Just use the medium-sized photo in your gallery (the one with the Title under it)
RIGHT click on it, choose Properties and then highlight the Address (URL)
Post it here using [ img] and [ /img] (WITHOUT the spaces)

Here goes..................

Before


And after

Hmmm................  should have been bigger I think.

Before


After


Ahhhhhhhhhh............ much better.

Ken,  great job.  The little girl is so cute too.  Is she yours?

HAHAHAHA!  Great job, Ken! 

Ken, do you use Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro?

Well, I just saw Ken's little girl, so guess this sweet one isn't his.   My sister has the most beautiful little Korean girl.  She's 8 or so now, but they were able to get her when she was a baby. 

That is real nice!

I think I need to explain a little.

I use photoshop.

This is a photo my wife took in Cusco Peru this October.  Alas, I did not get to go with my wife.  She went on a Medical missions trip to Lima and they had a couple of days of sightseeing.  I like her photo and thought it would be neat b&w with a little color.  I did it with the flower colored and will post when it's done.