Lt. Wright

[Zuzah]

Thanks to AndyHall for finding this.

Expired Image Removed

 

[AndyHall]

Color wiggle? Wow!

 

[civilwarincolor]

Nice Navy, not a fan of the wiggle. Since you did both sides of this have you thought about posting it as a stereo image, free view, cross view or anaglyph?

 

[RebelCause]

I'm expecting him to speak at any moment. Thanks for posting. Excellent work.

 

[AndyHall]

Dude needs to cut back on the caffeine, that's all.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

A Sherman color wiggle, that would be awesome plus believable.

I just can't get over these, with exactly the correct amount of little gray hair, for instances in an auburn-haired person's beard to make the portrait correct- it's so subtle a correct detail, you'd miss it. If that particular thing wasn't included- the whole thing would probably look off without the viewer being able to quite put their finger on 'why'. That shade of blue eyes- same thing- would probably throw the whole portrait 'off' if it were a different shade- seems exact for Wright's hair and skin.

Do you 'test' various shades before deciding on one, or is there some computer-generated thing which gives you an idea of what to use- maybe some blueprint based on what has been used previously? IT words left out because I have no idea what they might be.

 

[Zuzah]

A Sherman color wiggle, that would be awesome plus believable.

I just can't get over these, with exactly the correct amount of little gray hair, for instances in an auburn-haired person's beard to make the portrait correct- it's so subtle a correct detail, you'd miss it. If that particular thing wasn't included- the whole thing would probably look off without the viewer being able to quite put their finger on 'why'. That shade of blue eyes- same thing- would probably throw the whole portrait 'off' if it were a different shade- seems exact for Wright's hair and skin.

Do you 'test' various shades before deciding on one, or is there some computer-generated thing which gives you an idea of what to use- maybe some blueprint based on what has been used previously? IT words left out because I have no idea what they might be.

Gut feeling.

I used to replicate my older works, but right now every person is unique, and I go by the feeling in my gut whenever I colorize, whether or not that particular shade fits, if not I adjust it so minutely until I get the right feeling. With grey hair, or fading hair in older gentlemen, when you colorize it the way I do, the color will stand out due to the saturation (Strength/Intensity of the color), so I know whether or not he had a beard full of luscious auburn, or a silver mane. I always have a specific method of colorization of course, and a specific amount of about 30 different colors that I bring to every single new photograph, these are tweaked and adjusted to taste, but the basic skin tones stay mostly the same - 5 reds, 2 yellows, 3 blues, 1 green, 1 pink, and the final skin color. I change the blues depending on the intensity of his stubble and the shadows (Whether or not it's a hard shadow, or a soft shadow - the difference between sunny weather and overcast weather), and I use one blue to simulate reflected light, i.e. the highlights of his skin, where the skylight is hitting him, his skin is reflecting light in these areas. Usually when I colorize I apply the colors I usually do, and get a feeling for how the image looks with the colors on, and usually I have a mental note of his complexity, so I adjust the skin color and saturation based on that, and maybe remove some saturation in the skin or add some, and then add some orange/brown to make him more tan.

That's about all there is to it, once you've gotten used to it anyway.

Hell, if Andy has any color wiggle portraits of Sherman, I'd do that in a heartbeat!

Dude needs to cut back on the caffeine, that's all.

He IS a little jittery, yes!

I'm expecting him to speak at any moment. Thanks for posting. Excellent work.

My pleasure entirely, thank you.

Nice Navy, not a fan of the wiggle. Since you did both sides of this have you thought about posting it as a stereo image, free view, cross view or anaglyph?

I only did one side, as it's a 2-sided gif. I can send you the .psd if you'd like to study it?

 

[civilwarincolor]

I only did one side, as it's a 2-sided gif. I can send you the .psd if you'd like to study it?

I downloaded the gif and opened it in photoshop, there are two images. This one and this one. Did someone send it to you as an animated gif to start? Either way, you may not realize it, but you just finished a stereo image.

I broke down the two images and made an anaglyph, free view (parallel) and cross view image. Here are the results:

To view anaglpyh in 3D use red/cyan glasses. To free view or cross view follow these directions. When you do you will notice that this is a 3D image. There are slight differences between the two that I can point out if needed.

Anaglyph:

Free View (parallel)

Cross view:

 

[Zuzah]

I downloaded the gif and opened it in photoshop, there are two images. This one and this one. Did someone send it to you as an animated gif to start? Either way, you may not realize it, but you just finished a stereo image.

I broke down the two images and made an anaglyph, free view (parallel) and cross view image. Here are the results:

To view anaglpyh in 3D use red/cyan glasses. To free view or cross view follow these directions. When you do you will notice that this is a 3D image. There are slight differences between the two that I can point out if needed.

Yes, I did a stereo image - that's why I tried to tell you I think there's an easier way to colorize them than what you're doing, but I honestly don't know how restoration would work.

AndyHall keeps posting .gif images and I keep saving them, and colorizing them.

 

[kel1985]

Cool!

 

[civilwarincolor]

Yes, I did a stereo image - that's why I tried to tell you I think there's an easier way to colorize them than what you're doing, but I honestly don't know how restoration would work.

AndyHall keeps posting .gif images and I keep saving them, and colorizing them.

So, did you colorize them separately, or together? If you did them together there are going to be problems. Might not be that noticeable with a studio image, but would be much more apparent in an outdoor scene. The shift between L/R is enough that you have to colorize twice to get it to work.

I would be happy to look at your PSD files, email me a link.

 

[civilwarincolor]

Pardon for those that are not colorizers. The following discussion covers some of the technical minutia of colorizing and is really meant as an exercise in understanding the technique used.

Thanks for sending the PSD file. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it does appear, as I suspected, that you colorized both images together and not as two separate images. I am very impressed that you have a terrific looking colorization on both sides with just a single colorization. I think you got away with it since the depth of field is not great, so a lot of the items line up in both images.

The colorization layers matches better for Layer 2 than it does for Layer 1. It is very subtle with an image like this, but you can see that the button color (gold) is not as good as you usually do for Layer 1 as it was on Layer 2. By that I mean that the gold is slightly to the left of the buttons on Layer 1 and does not match 100%. You can see the same thing on the Brown layer used for the chair. Other features would give the same result. A slight bit of shift in what is covered by color layer is due to the small differences between the two images.

This is at an acceptable limit within an image such as this since the depth between the closest point in the image and the farthest (z space) is very limited. In some of my outdoor stereos some of the items that are further back are so different between the two images that this approach would have resulted in wildly bad colorization. I even have some examples that have items that do not appear like this one (yeah, I know my colorization is bad, this is several years old and has not been updated). This point of this example it to show extremes between the left/right image that could not have allowed it to be colorized the way that you did with Lt. Wright.

I do find it interesting that your results are as good as they are in a studio image. I think part of it that helped also was the relatively small size of the file you worked with. Had this been one of the large scale tiff files I think the results would have been significantly more noticeable when you are zoomed in.

When you have the chance, I would like to ask you a few questions via Skype about the gold layer. I noticed some interesting things on how the layer responds and would like your input.

 

[Zuzah]

When you have the chance, I would like to ask you a few questions via Skype about the gold layer. I noticed some interesting things on how the layer responds and would like your input.

I should be available whenever, it's summer vacation after all.