Enhancing And Colorizing Photographs

I think you have to be more specific. Photoshop, software from OnOne Software, PhotoMatrix and Topaz etc. all offer a range of effects. There is no one best, it depend on what you are trying to achieve.

There are Lightroom Presets, Photoshop Actions, Filters and good old trial and error - all kinds of options. YouTube is a good place to learn.

Here is one thread that may be of interest.There are many others so you need to do a search under discussions to find them, It is one of the more popular photo enhancing program available. Also later in this thread there is a discussion about the importance of shooting in raw and editing in tff format to maximize the results. Editing in jpg will result in a certain amount of compression. I have found that some of the editing programs will not support tff files though,
http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=2256414

photoshop. i'm still messing with tricks to get a more realistic face and coloring.









these are my latest 4 attempts to getting a more realistic look.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Edward, Judy and Mike,

Thank you, all, for sharing this (above). I am not sure of some of the valuable suggestions which Judy spoke about.
(" shooting in raw and editing in tff format to maximize the results. Editing in jpg will result in a certain amount of compression. I have found that some of the editing programs will not support tff files"). This is all new to me...but, surely, I want to be able to learn this technology.

Take a look at my Work, im just editing it with instagram filters and options cause i post them there but instagram cuts all shots into a cube.

Thats the result of my editing with instagram ross, think it isnt the best option but simple and fast!.

Ross, I use a number of plugins with Photoshop to boost color but I've found that adjusting Red/Green/Blue separately via Curves adjustment layers is a simple way to correct or enhance tones. I've heard people say that PS comes with quite a learning curve but I have not found that to be true. There are a lot of tools and filters but all it takes is some time to experiment to see different results. The most important thing is to leave your original files untouched. Always work with duplicate files. As far as Tiff files, my system apparently isn't robust enough to work with them (I suspect it has something to do with third party plugins) so I save the RAW files as PSDs before editing. Save as JPG only after you are done editing.

If you use Lightroom you can tweet your image in so many ways to pull out the color. Move the sliders back and forth. I go between “library” and “develop” for different ways to achieve maximum benefits to the image. I also use OnOne for other effects not possible with photoshop or lightroom.. Shooting in RAW is also important as other folks have mentioned. Just have fun, play around. Try setting your camera to “bracket” your exposures, I use Photomatix Pro to layer them together to get the HDR image and again, you can tweet all you want to get your desired image. Key for me is to take the time to know each program then take the time to play and see what each option can achieve for your image.. Once you know the software you’ll know just what to do when you want to maximize your image the way you desire. Hope this helps.
Cheryl

I discovered Photoshop in 2006, looked at many hours of DVD tutorials, and 9 years later, I still look at tutorials.

As far as I know, no one knows all the tricks of using the program--which is what I love about it.

It's a commitment if you want to do the job right.

Colorize in Photoshop CS3, yes CS3, you don't need anything fancy for colorizing. But unless you have a large sharp b+w image to start with, which is generally non-existent for old PD images, you'll want to apply a painterly filter on the resultant colorized b+w work. The nice thing about applying a painterly filter is the obvious painterly effect, but you can also compose a scene and be creative, using images from different sources and then have the filter mesh everything together. -W

I mostly use Lightroom and occasionally use Gimp. Gimp is similar to PhotoShop (which I'd love to have but can't afford.)

Can anyone tell me if the pictures have to be a certain format before they will open in Gimp. Some of the pictures I have been taking in RAW wont open in Gimp.

This another question about Gimp. Is there a way to have a file open in Gimp with a page of thumb nails. It's really awkward to try and find a picture that you want to work with when all you see is a list of numbers

Here is a thread regarding editing raw images via gimp http://howtogimp.com/raw-photos-with-gimp/
You need a converter that will convert the raw image to tff ,,,Always try to edit in tff,,,Only covert to jpg when you need to upload to fas,,,after your editing is finished, Editing in tff incorporates less compression and distortion,

As Cheryl Beck said, Lightroom is the bomb and is very powerful. I've been using it for 3 or 4 years now and I learn new techniques all the time, yet the basics can be mastered in an hour or so. There are several good, cheap e-books for Lightroom at craftandvision.com. Lightroom can be used with RAW, .tif, and .jpg files, but it's most effective with RAW files. Most of the last 3 years of work in my portfolio was processed almost 100% in Lightroom.

All terrific and valuable shares. I thank you all. What is consistently amazing to me is that the enhancing of the original photographic images seems to be a very standard and much-used practice in today's photographic world. This practice is all relatively "new" to me (although I have been shooting pictures with digital for several years). There was a brilliant photographer, Pete Turner, who was considered the global expert for fortifying his great photography (film). He basically stood alone in the world with his techniques and practices. But that was then (60s/70s/80s).

I am very grateful for all of your most generous information. I am not sure that I will do much of this enhancing of images (I still use the basic elements of photography which with which I had success in the film days...you can see that in my current photography which mirrors much of my past work)....but I do encourage you to keep sharing your success in this Discussion. I am certain that it will help many photographers out there. Ross Lewis