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Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Colorizing B&w Photos In Photo Shop Cs6

I am learning how to work in photo shop and have been working on colorizing old black and white photographs. Being very new at this I'm only using one method for the colorization. I was hoping that those with more experience can share a few tips on this process. I'd like to expand the color palette as I am only using 3 adjustments in hues to get my colors. I would like tips on how to giving a more natural color to objects with light and shadows, and maybe shine and other effects when placing a color. Please try and keep the tips on the EASY side.

This is not an image thread but please share any images as examples of any tips you provide.

Here are a few images I colorized, I also use DAP once I add color to the black and white photos's, feel free to critique my images for any or obvious flaws or things that need improvement.

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Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Art Prints

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Photography Prints

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Sell Art Online

 

These look pretty good, Mario. What DAP preset are you using, looks like "Golden Age"? What's your workflow, how are you coloring up to the edges? I've used both DAP and Alien Skin for the mashing and oftentimes both in the same piece. I do a rough outline marquee of the areas and then separate it with a photo filter layer. I actually go into the skin areas like the face and hands, the face takes up most of the time as I have to mask out face, eyeballs, eyewhites, eyebrows, lips, and moustache if they had one. ...then the fun and creativity begins. -W


You can just colorize the b+w and have a nice color version like the 2 below.
Photography Prints Sell Art Online


Or add/combine stuff to make a creative composition like the 2 below.
Art Prints Art Prints

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Nice images Wings, especially Abraham. Yes you guessed it golden age, seems to be my favorite and I like what it does with light and dark. I am just crawling around in photo shop, not sure how to mask, I am using layers and I use the various selection tools to select the section I am coloring and I do a little feathering, that's about it for now, I have colored some eyes but not very well.The Face and hair not so easy, but I'm working on ti. Alien skin I not familiar with but I guess I will check it now that you mentioned it. I have my hands full with photo shop, which I really like.

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

I started just trying different tools and stumbled on the brushes that allow me to paint, I enlarged the image enough to paint some areas down to a single pixel, this could take a lot of time, but it allowed me to colorize eyes better than with the larger selection tools.Still it seems a little daunting as there are so many options and adjustment to each tool and process.

 

I've not used the brush tool for colorizing, it seems more difficult than using the lasso and then applying a photo filter color to that selection and making each selection a color layer. If I didn't use something like dap or alien to mash together and regenerate the image, getting down to pixel level would probably be useful, but keep in mind, dap or alien does a pretty good job at mashing and recreating the output so where your color outline is may not be that precise on the output anyhow. -W

 

Nancy Ingersoll

8 Years Ago

I like to use a soft brush (hardness NOT above 50%), and paint on another layer or better yet with a mask. Then the key is to change the blend mode on the layer (this allows the texture to remain). The blend mode will vary depending on the image you are coloring and the color you are using - try overlay to start and then play around to see if others are better. Have fun.

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

Photography Prints

Photography Prints

Art Prints

Sell Art Online

Sell Art Online

its currently one of my specialties. you first have to clean the image up, remove noise, scratches, etc. straighten crop and so on.

then you need to adjust the black and white so it looks even an nice, but with good contrast. shadows shouldn't be too dark, whites shouldn't look blown out. i use contrast masks and separate curve layers to get the look i want.

after than i sharpen it with focus magic then a topaz adjust for the minor details. then i clean it again - this will all take a few hours.

i use only a few layers to get the job done.

i do everything with a brush. no lassos, no hue sliders. there are many ways to do it, but for the amount of detail i do, its the only way to make them.

one thing i can say -- don't use the color layer to do the color. it will not give you a good look. and it will ignore highlights.

when you do skin tones be sure to use peachy orange tones, yours are very flat and don't look like skin.


i added examples of my own work just because i did.

curious where you go the powerhouse mechanic. i've been in LOC for months and i can't find anything like that one. i'm always looking for new sources for odd things.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

city scenes are by far the hardest to do. partly because you have to look up the sign colors and such. and know what a building looks like. often you can look these up before hand and see what the colors are in real life. if you do get the images from LOC get the largest sizes they have. and make sure it says - no known reason it can't be used at the bottom. i stay away from high demand stuff that doesn't give me the ok.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Suzanne Powers

8 Years Ago

Mike what image source is LOC? I just did some research and found out it is Library of Congress.

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

library of congress holds onto photos that were given and or donated to them. they are either copyright expired, non renewed, or copyright donated images. some are as current as today (the highsmith collection). and others are from the civil war, detroit publishing, bain news and others. they check to see if there are any restrictions. if there are they either tell you or they don't let you download it.

many just take the images from that site and sell them directly.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

and there are so many there. but the search is SOOOO terrible to use. i learned tricks to get more out of it. still though i miss images. i've been in there since feb? i think. now i'm going state by state, still missing things. not everything has a title. sometimes you find it in a mixed up collection. i've gathered around 3000 images so far. and working on them bit by bit. weird stuff, funny things. odd things. streets, locations, people, stars that were once someone, lots of things.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Thank You Mike, for those tips. your work is one I really have admired from the first image I have seen, it is so detailed, not only that I like your selection of subjects for your creations. As far as the power house mechanic image goes, I do google searches and then narrow them down by usage rights and then I search for them on Wikipedia or wiki commons, usually if I find one image I like from an artist I'll then search for more of their work in the public domain,I really like wiki for this as they provide a lot of info. on the image and the author, and usage, etc. I to want to pass on anything that has licenses or requires permission, and I save pages declaring it a public domain image for future reference.

Thanks Nancy, I'm at the point were I'm not afraid to try anything now.

Wings, I see what your saying, I really like Dap for that, it really improves the image, and yeah getting to the pixel level can be pretty tedious and long hours of work. I see that there is lots for me to learn here. But it's quite enjoyable to see what can be accomplished.

 

One reason for keeping elements and ultimately complete subjects in separate layers, at least for the way I want to use the final product (that I spend countless hours in creating, I might add), is so I can get creative with them and at the same time get that extra mileage out of them by creating different scenes with the colorizations. Each subject becomes part of my palette so to speak. Below is an example of getting that extra mileage from those separate colorized artworks where I've created a completely different composition using a number of colorizations. -W

Photography Prints

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Wings, with so much going on in your image and so many subjects , I get why you would want to separate and then have them available to reuse.

 

Harold Shull

8 Years Ago

Hiya Mario,

I am a hard-nosed Photoshop artist and have been one for over 20 years. All of my colorization, tweaking and adjusting of my artwork and photographs is done with layers and levels in Photoshop. Although I am sure that there are new upgrades and programs that can do better and the same thing that my methods can, I will stick with my tried and true techniques. After all I am the same little guy who put a part in his hair when he was 12 years old (some 61 years ago and have the same part) so you can see I don't believe in change when something works. My wife of 48 years will testify to that. About the only thing I change on a regular basis is my underware. 😋

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Well Harold, how could I look a gift horse of information like what you just gave me in the mouth? Your work is outstanding,and if it worked for you at such a professional level for so many years, I've no doubt it can work for me in my less ambitious undertakings, in my new found desire to work with images. Thanks for the advise.

Photography Prints

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Here is a work in progress, this one has some of the smallest elements I have attempted to colorize so far. I don't know how to work in levels, I'm stuck for now with hues to get my colors, also I'm uncertain how to go from Photograph to painting to use brushes, but I don't want to stop creating to go learn at the moment, I know eventually I'll want to learn the harder stuff, but I am enjoying this one for now.

Art Prints

 

Yea, it's definitely addictive. I just finished this one. You'll see I get my Edgar mileage worth. This one uses both dap and alien. The alien gets me a more natural brush stroke and canvas texture look while dap gives me that nice "golden age" preset tone and feel. The background is a vintage pd photo of a theater, I started not wanting to colorize it but the results were not behaving so I went ahead and did the colorization, it definitely finishes off the composition. As I always do, I lasso'ed the color area and applied a color photo filter. Once I've established a few layered areas, other areas can be lasso'ed and the previously lasso'ed layered areas can be subtracted from the selection set so it becomes less lasso-work the more layered areas I have. An example would be the eyes (though not in this case since I already have Poe in my saved "palette") - once I have the eyeballs in a layer, all I have to do to get the eye-whites is to lasso the entire eye and then subtract the eyeball selection from it. And again, both dap and alien will do the mashing so absolute precision is not necessary, plus the looseness of the mashing gives the composition a more "realistic" painterly feel. -W

Art Prints




 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

to use brushes you have to have a tablet. if your trying with a mouse, it won't work. a mouse is clompy, like an elephant tap dancer. they have the moves, but they are not that delicate.

and from there if you never used a tablet, it takes getting used to, and it also takes a while to get the feel of it.


right now when i do a colorized thing, its almost like being a kid again, but i feel guilty that i should be doing my own stuff (i have like 2000 images to work with right now). but then when i work on the photos i feel guilty that i should be doing something coloring based and it goes back and forth like that.

what i like about colorizing is - i can finally have shots that i had no way of taking. rooms that were actually lived in, old buildings with old cars on the street. old cars that are dirty and beat up opposed to seeing them at a car show with a sign in the window. and best of all, it doesn't matter if i even own a camera, i can do this for a long time. on the downside because it uses my creative center, i find that i'm not doing digital art right now.

Art Prints
this was my first attempt i believe. i used lassos on everything. it took like 4-5 days to make this. something i can now complete in about a day with far more realistic results. i used color mode for the most part and didn't adjust anything before i did it. it looks colorized, the colors are too rich, the building too pale. i didn't know how to make the copper verdigris on the roof, and i had just started trying to figure out a layering system that worked. many of these came from my grandfather as i practiced methods.

Art Prints
in this one, i learned how to do buildings. making them look dirtier, but i didn't master cars. they still looked out of place.

Photography Prints
i learned to dirty up a car, and figured out how to do the copper and such.

Sell Art Online
today however i use a pen only. no lassos. the other one had many hard edges. i add new skies, and research the area. most of these are postcards... however don't use those as a guide, they sent their images to india and they did the colorizing. they did what we are doing - -guessed.

Art Prints
today i now just look for scenes that tell a story. i try to read their skin tone, red heads have freckles so i make it so. i can populate folders that didn't have a lot of work in them. all the while stirring a rockwell feel to it. skin tones need multiple layers to get right.

Sell Art Online
old images are always too bright. they are shot documentary style. so i will always shade them in just like my normal work.

Art Prints
and every now and then i do a street scene. these take 4-5 days to make. there are many elements. i like streets because of the signs. i liked that one because of that hat sign. i later made another of this area from another angle. the goal is to make it look like a color photo, but with painting like elements. i want it as real as i can get it. its cool to see if the buildings still exist, but in ones like this - they don't exist. many parking lots exist in other towns. one was turned into a park and you would have never have known it was anything. and yet i found a number in boston yesterday that had most of the buildings intact, you can even see the holes where the signs hung.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Wings, addictive is the appropriate word for sure! Right now I feel like playing hooky to work on Girl and Canary and not go to work on a landscaping project for a customer.

@Mike, I've tried with the peachy red face and It's a dramatic improvement, thanks for that tip! I really like your dirty cars too, that Rue De Valence... is awesome. I kept thinking your images reminded me of some thing and I couldn't put my finger on it, then you mentioned Norman Rockwell, exactly, always loved his art, I seem to gravitate towards that style! I to am feeling like this is taking me back to when I was a kid with a coloring book. Your techniques are amazing, I love what you do with the light and shade. I don't use a mouse, I'm using my laptops touch pad, but I may explore getting one of those pen and pads, but like I said I'm having to much fun with what I've figured out so far.

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

rockwell liked using happy faces together acting like they were interested in the topics they were given to do. rosy cheeked people with that 1930/40 charm, usually doing family based things. i'm trying to move along those lines with my own look though.

if you get a tablet use a 6x8. smaller is harder to use. larger and your hand has to move too much. i have a intous pro, though the bamboo series is cheaper, and you'll get a similar result.

the main hard part about coloring is - keeping it all historically accurate. signs are the worst because they come in different variations but only one can really be correct. also when you make these, try to get the largest size possible. most of the ones i have are either 25mp, or 50mp. you'll get more detail and the grain will look tighter.

after your done doing the colors. on a new layer use selective color and adjust each slider with each color to adjust the tones it uses CYMK but you can clean up the colors you chose.

then use color balance and adjust the shadow,highlight,midtones. your only going up or down on these sliders a little bit. this will adjust your overall tint.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Thanks Mike, great tips again!, I'm definitely going to invest in the tablet and pen, as my hand is starting to feel the strain already. Well I had to go to work but I knocked off early as I was anxious to get home to the cool a/c and to my work in progress.

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

however you may get writers cramp with a pen. you'll need to practice with it. some people pick right up on it, and others really struggle using it.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

That's why I'm going to buy the less expensive intous @$79=$99 to try it first.

Ok, Mike I finished it as much as I could with what I know so far, I tried playing with the colors and balance as you suggested but I'm not quite there with then but I did make a few minor adjustment. Feel free to critique this one Mike, it's how I know what really needs improvement.

Photography Prints


Art Prints

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

its a bit technocolor, but seeing as your using a touch pad, its fine. i can barely make the cursor move with those things. once you have the brush you can contour things. i'm wondering if she wore socks, i see faded parts between the straps, but the leg seems to enter the shoe without them. to blend lines where the color meets color, use a stippled brush. i think its called that. it looks like a bunch of fine dots in a circle. i use that on a smudge brush to tuck it back into place or smooth out lines.

i'd make the bow either brighter or red. partly to grab attention, partly because i think it was red. and i think the dress was pink. i'd make the planter a little darker and earthier in tone. part of the issue is that certain areas are supposed to be dark. so that bright red chair looks out of place because it was in shadow. they made it that way so the girl would pop off the background and the eyes would follow her to the food to the bird.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Mike I think the socks were those around the ankles so I tried to make them white between the straps, the dress I tried, pink and yellow but they didn't look right to me, remember I'm only using the hues slider for now. I will practice with those things you suggested, I do see what you mean about the chair and the planter and plant.

Thanks for the critique. Now here is the dap version, which I really like because it seems to make a smaller image larger in it's processing and this was a small image to start with, I could not find a larger one to start with. I am curious about your opinion on this version.

Sell Art Online

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

it does smear it together more. i still see the plant against the wall being outside its border. i don't much like the outline effect on things and it looks like its melting and its too yellow. the brightness of the other one had a certain old time charm and innocents. the darker one doesn't have that quality, i think its all too dark now, nothing really pops like it did before.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

I see what you are saying Mike, my gut feeling was I liked the first one better also, there is some thing about it having sharper lines. I guess it will take time to develop the eye. I appreciate your help and the precision with which you point things out! Thank you!

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

I did this one trying to practice with light and dark.

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Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Mike, feel free to critique this one for me, talking about Norman Rockwell got me searching his work and I came across this gem, I hope I didn't do to much injustice to it.

Art Prints

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

in general to stay on the safe side, i try to stay away from other people's artwork, even if available... but.... colorwise its ok, it has a cartoon look due to the solid look of the coloring. the colors on the boy on the left look good, the middle is a bit too pink, and the right is kind of manikin like especially the feet. the log is a bit on the brown side, and the top would be more of a gray color because wood ages when cut. i'd add a white mask gradient on the sky so it fades in white at the bottom. or you can add a gradient from where the sun is. i think the grinding stones were paler than that.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Thanks Mike, I'm a little confused on drawing a distinction between a public domain photograph and a public domain photograph of a sketch or work of art, if both are "said to be in the public domain" what makes one different than the other? I obviously am not very well versed in this since I've just started to take an interest in digital art. I have done some reading on the subject so I'm not totally clueless but I can see it's a very controversial subject and is very prone to a myriad of interpretations, especially by those that go by the title of legal man. I am relying on the position of institutions like Wikimedia Foundation and statements they have attached with the photographs they publish as public domain images, which is where I have downloaded the public domain images I have been using.

I do appreciate the critique, I spent 15 hours almost non stop on the above image, I did get a little careless towards the end as it was 3:00 am, it was good practice focusing for such an extended non-stop time on the play of light and shadow that Norman Rockwell was so great at.

The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain".
This photographic reproduction is therefore also considered to be in the public domain.

 

David Bridburg

8 Years Ago

Mario,

No lawyer here, but I have carefully studied this corner of the copyright law.

A work of art in the PD when photographed, the photo is also in the PD. As you quoted "a faithful reproduction".

This is not true for statues. When the photographer chooses an angle to shoot a statue, he creates his own
version or image of that statue. That image is not in the PD.

I would have to go to Florence and shoot the Statue of David to use the image.

Dave

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

there is another method you can use that i forgot about. i assume your drawing with a finger, masks and using hue as you said. you can also use fill with color.

in the layer palette, the button that looks like a black and white cookie, there is a fill with solid color. you can choose any color you want and go back to it to tweak. then to be fancy, you can add an FX layer, adding a color overlay, texture and what have you. this will give you a better control in tone balance. adding a gradient and such and making it adjustable later. but you'll need a mask for these to work.



i think when its artwork (or even photos). it depends if anyone extended the copyright. ansel adams i think is now PD because i don't think anyone filed an extension (they have to be done at a very certain time). and if the rockwell family extended it, there could be issues. i don't know how one would look it up though. i wouldn't trust people on the net to say if its PD, they don't know. the copyright thing is confusing though. the wiki sites are ran by internet people, i'm not sure i'd trust it as a source. i'm only trusting the library of congress to get it right since they probably have better access to records than me. there are many nice images online i'd love to have, but i'm always hesitant to get any.... i think flickr has a number of PD images. they donated a bunch to the LOC in 2009 i think.

maybe the rockwell site or museums would know what is what. its just to stay on the safe side.... give the LOC a try, the images are pretty huge there. just make sure that it says "no known something" at the bottom. though if you can't use it, they often don't let you download it.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com


 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Thanks Dave.

Mike I just started playing with the buttons and I can actually paint with the brushes using my touch pad, problem is now I have to figure out what I did to do it again, I did it in rgb mode and using hues, by selecting hues and then placing a color from the slider then going back and selecting air brush it gives me the same color to paint with, it's just that every variation of color needs a new layer, I think. The learning curve sucks.LOL

I agree so far LOC is the best bet, they do have so many, I have bookmarked enough already to keep me busy. I do see what you mean about the paintings and more well known and popular art works. I do like running across images I know nothing about.

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Nothing beats playing with the buttons to figure out some thing new, instructions are just to complicated, the videos can be equally frustrating especially when the person doing the teaching is long winded.

Now I can paint with brushes, and I can layer colors right over an existing color and play with opacity also, still just using the touch pad.

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

use the brush to make a mask, then with that mask you can color it anything you want. duplicate a layer and change the colors that way. my original method had each color on its own layer. but that became really annoying. once you have the brush its much easier. then you can experiment with brushes to get new effects. you can even brush in textures if you wanted too.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Wow, this is much better, now I know what you meant when you said dirty'n up a car. This is so much better! I'm not sure how to work with mask, I'm just starting to work with layers, a whole bunch of layers it took to color Finnegan! But this is great I have more options with colors and I can try does fancy light effects you do Mike.Lol

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

then if you get the layers, and choose overlay, soft light, and so on, you'll get even more color combinations.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

I'll give it a try Mike, Thanks! Now I'm going to take a break and do some cooking, chicken alfredo is sounding good to me right now. My brain has been on overload since yesterday, nothing a few glasses of my favorite Malbe won't fix.Lol Then after a good nap, I'll be ready for more.

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Mike, after taking your advise and viewing all the public domain photographs that I sampled at the Library Of Congress, I agree with you 100% that there is no need to use other art work to colorize when so much is available in such amazing photographs.

Now, I spent all day yesterday and most of today going thru the Bains news service historical photo's, what an experience! It took me away from photoshop for the moment. I have been taking photos with my phone in HDR, thinking that stood for high definition, not knowing any better. I didn't like the way the photo's were turning out, not having a clue that the photo's required post processing for the effects to take place. Well, at least now I know why my photo's were not turning out very well, I'm glad I kept them and didn't just delete them, I have been trying to learn the process and here is my very first one.

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Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

yeah bain has some neat stuff. i just wish they didn't crop people in half like they do.

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this came from bain news. just wish i had the stories to go with them.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

I like that one Mike!

Here are a few more "HDR" or not photos, this is my first try at post processing, so I don't really know what I'm doing, any tips will be appreciated.

Photography Prints

Sell Art Online

Sell Art Online

 

Georgiana Romanovna

8 Years Ago

Black Magic - google it ;)

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

hdr works only on certain things. the waterfall - moving water doesn't work because you need 3 frames and it will blur. you can tell only one was shot and then it was pushed. otherwise you would be able to see into the shadow on the rocks and the white wouldn't be gray like that.

the other two hdr didn't add anything to it. i'd shoot with a real camera, or one that has the ability to lower and raise EV levels.

since the phone can't do real hdr, i wouldn't play with it too much.

Photography Prints
from the outside in, i could get the sidewalk, while getting the people and room inside. because of movement of the people you have to hand shade it. normally the inside would be too dark, and while it might be savable, there would be too much noise in the shadows.

Sell Art Online
from the inside out, you can see the room, scale and what's outside. without hdr, doing just the scale, i could have had the window and the scale, but not the room. if it was just the room, then the window would be lost and half the scale.

the downside is, you need a steady hand, and lens, or a tripod. all the images have to line up right or it won't look good. i shoot everything by hand. also hdr tends to flatten things. because it expands shadow and flattens highlights. the entire scene loses its depth. i combated that by developing my own shading technique. which i use on everything. it also keeps it all consistent looking.

hdr won't make things better. people don't buy it because its hdr. you still need a good image or scene to work with. and even then hdr should only be used when you need that shot. a sunset, nice sky, or what have you, is a good use. however... if its windy out and the trees, branches, flowers, etc are moving, you'll have a Very hard time getting it to line up. your better off shooting just the one shot. plus these files are huge and many. i only shoot raw, so they can be very large.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Mike your HDR photos are impressive, you are a master of light and dark, both in your use of HDR and your colorized B&W images, for me the light and dark is what gives such a dramatic effect and creates so much interest when I view your work.

As far as my photo's go, I was wondering why all my water fall's came out blurred, seems I was not supposed to be in hdr mode for any moving shots. I was prompted to do a little more reading up on hdr, it seems to have been around for 100 years and it's not something new to photography at all (well maybe new to digital) . The reviews on the samsung galaxy4 13mega pix camera and it's HDR feature place it among the best in phone cameras, well I keep telling myself this so I don't have to go buy a real digital camera.Lol

Georgiana, is that black magic not more for videos then still photos? Plus it's very expensive!

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Mike, just in case I have a change of heart, what inexpensive digital slr would you recommend, I'm not going to be taking photo's of sporting events, I do like macro photo's, and I do like B&W photography. Ease of use and price a consideration, all the bells and whistles not so much, my goal is to take better photo's, I know the camera is only part of that equation, but right now you know what I'm using. Thanks, now I have to go work for a customer and make some money to support this habit.

Oh, and HDR is a must.

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

water moves pretty fast you either need to hold the shutter longer for a smooth creamy effect. or much faster to freeze frame it. depends on how your camera works and if you can control those things.

photography is all about light. a good photographer will bring reflectors, lighting, set things up in a studio and so on. the cheap and lazy photographer (me), will use photoshop to control the light. if you have few shadows you can create your own to add depth. the eyes follow where the image is brightest usually, so i keep that in mind when shading them out.



if your camera is shooting a real hdr - 3 frames or more, things will look softer due to ghosting. that one is not in focus because i think its not focused. it looks a bit enlarged some how, but i think that's your tonemapper doing that.

yeah, hdr isn't that new. they did many experiments with it in the past. they made hdr color sandwiches using color filters to make a color scene. but many of those had registration issues. they dodged and burned images as well (they had a lot of light control then, those old images are pretty amazing shade wise). but EV was mostly used for people that wasn't really sure what setting to use, so it would fire the 3 shots that way. hdr became stronger when tonemapping came out, and i think its still going strong despite the HDR haters.

if your planning on shooting pictures, i'd invest in a small used slr. a phone camera, they are getting better, and they are good for getting into tight spots or incognito. but you lose some of the control a normal camera has.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

slr's usually don't have an hdr mode (Though some seem to have a function like that doing it in camera). you'll want a camera that can do a -2 or more EV ability. i can't say which camera is best since i only do research for me, and i tend to have expensive tastes.

you have to decide what is cheap to you (because lenses usually don't come with it and they are very expensive). how large and heavy you can carry, your learning curve, what else you want it to do and so on. i've always had canon cameras because i have canon gear.

they have nice cameras that are small with a nice zoom, they have baseball sized cameras with a huge zoom. an slr will give you more control of lenses to get. i'd go to a camera store and look into, canon, nikon and pentax. those are the top ones. though sony is coming around and i don't know if that sigma camera really is that great or not. then get a matching lens to it and there you go. but your looking for EV abilities mostly. i forget what the mode is called though.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Mike, this is the first camera I owned as a teenager in the mid 1970's, it was the cheapest SLR I good find, I took the bus to downtown Miami and purchased it for $99. dollars. I also later invested in my own enlarger and set up a little dark room in the home bathroom. I actually developed a few good photos from real film.That was a long time ago, but not really.



 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

i never worked with film, and always had small pocket cameras that were automatic. my first digital was a canon powershot pro 90, but didn't get into HDR until i think my second SLR. the only film i had went to the drugstore to be developed. and it was mostly for fun type pictures. computers weren't out when i shot stuff.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Yeah, I owned my camera well before my first computer. Ok, here is another snap shot from my galaxy4 phone camera in "hdr" mode, it says it takes several exposure with the one snap shot, I only get one photo, I did adjustment in photoshop under the adjust images "HDR" tone adjustments, not sure what radius and stre.ngth mean, but I played with all the buttons, in b&w vibrance and saturation don't have any effect.

Art Prints

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

It's been a great day, just had a wonderful payday thanks to a loyal and repeat customer, so a new camera is not out of the question, maybe a new computer and a drawing tablet too.I was looking at the new cannon 2015 power shot 400 iS with 30xzoom lens @ 16mega pixel , and exposure compensation (-2 to +2). total price for new camera $149.

Actually, I think the Cannon sx520 with 42X zoom and cmos sensor sounds better at $199.00

 

Bob Galka

8 Years Ago

Mike....

Just wanted to comment on how generous you are with helping Mario get started on his new adventures... ;O) You are a good man.

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

yeah...


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Bob, I agree! A class act for sure, and I do appreciate it!

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

And modest to.Lol

 

Bob Galka

8 Years Ago

AND... a man of few words ;O)

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Few, but profound.

 

Mike Savad

8 Years Ago

i can only speak the truth...

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

I'm sorry Bob, I was remiss in mentioning that this is all your fault! I mean turning me on to dap, which is where all this has started. No, in all seriousness I am very appreciative for your assistance as well Bob, I just hope I don't owe either of you royalties when I start to sell.Lol

 

Bob Galka

8 Years Ago

No, these things are not formulas to follow, you will go your own way establishing your own techniques.

I have posted this tutorial before, but there may be members that may not be aware of it....

http://civilwartalk.com/threads/black-white-colorization-tutorial.78508/

 

Georgiana Romanovna

8 Years Ago

^^ Mario, no, not the one you are thinking of, but this one.

http://www.blackmagic-color.com/

Yes, it's pricey for business but it's well worth it. I do a lot of restoration and it has paid for itself too many times to count.

^ Bob, I'm very impressed with your tutorial - some of the pics are missing at the top which makes it a little difficult but it sure is a good result. Thank you for sharing.

 

Bob Galka

8 Years Ago

Georgiana.... thanks, but it is not "mine".. just something I came across years ago.

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

Georgiana, oh, ok I see, I saw the program it looks very good, thanks for the link.

 

This discussion is closed.