how to recolor a b&w photo using a similar color photo ?

[Michael REMY]

hi!

i have two photos, shooted probably the same day, by the same photograph in the same place !But the pose is a bit different.

first one is in high resolution and in black & white nuance.
second one is a small resolution and in full colors.

i wish re-color the black&white photo using exactly the same nuance from the colored one.

can i "copy" all the colors from the color-one to the b&w one ?

i hope there is a quick way to do that with corel paintshop

thanks for help

here are the photos :

the black and white to recolor http://michael.remy.free.fr/forum/1.jpg

the source color to use

[LeviFiction]

No quick way that I know of. This pathetic attempt alone took me almost a full hour.

The only way that I know of to color a B & W image is to paint it in. Though there are probably better methods. I used several methods for various parts of her, the skin-tone being the one that defeated me the most.

For the hair, I split the image up into 3 greyscale images based on HSL. (IMage - > Split Channel -> Split to HSL)

Then I grabbed the one that showed the greatest contrast between the hair and the background. Using the dodge brush I lightened the hair a little bit more. Then used the Threshold command to make some very stark contrasty portions. Then used the paintbrush set to either white or black (depnding on if I was adding or removing areas) and cleaned up some of the holes in the hair.

Then I copied the image.

Going back to the original I created a new "Mask from Image" selecting the black and white image I was working on to create a mask for the hair. I then cleaned it up some more.

I then sampled the hair color, filled a new raster layer with it and used the mask to only show the hair. Changing the blend mode to Color Legacy offered the best option in my opinion. But I do tend to be wrong where colors are concerned.

For the shirt I used the freehand selection set to smart-edge to select the shirt as accurately as I could. Then I created a new layer, sampled the color shirt and filled the new layer within the selection with this new color and also set it to Color (L).

For the lips I used a new layer and set it to Soft Light and painted in the lip color.

For the skin, I used the Dodge command since the face was coming in too dark by comparison to what the other picture showed, even though I sampled from the other picture. Dodge lightened the overall skin-tone and I decreased the opacity to 65 for a decent (though still wrong-looking) blend.

And for the most part it was just a long experimentation.

[Michael REMY]

i have an idea but i don't knwo how to do it.

i will need to place a plot in the left ears (by example) in the first image, then put another plot into the second image in the same ear.
then for all th emain shape of the picture, i will do that.
(It's like morphing plot correspondance...)
Then at the end, i could use a copy color auto filter to vectorise each destination ppicking color....

something like that...

psp can do it ?

[LeviFiction]

No.

I imagine very few programs have that sort of capability. I don't think even Photoshop has that capability.

You can, create vectors and move them between images tweaking the vector to match the new scenario but you'll still end up using the eye-dropper tool to select a color from the original image and creating individual objects for each portion of the portrait. And vectors are less organic so things like the hair would be difficult with vectors. Especially since PSP's vectors are very weak.

[teknisyan]

You can use the color changer tool but I'm not sure if you can really recreate the same color as the one that you posted here. Because the problem that I can see is that you won't be able to get the skin, hair and the background. Like what Levi mention, I have not seen any software, plugins that can convert a b/w to color that will have 50% to 75% accuracy.

[Kathy_9]

There is a plug-in available to colorize B&W photos - Akvis Coloriage. I believe they offer a trial so you could try it before you buy. http://akvis.com/en/coloriage/index.php

[Michael REMY]

There is a plug-in available to colorize B&W photos - Akvis Coloriage. I believe they offer a trial so you could try it before you buy. http://akvis.com/en/coloriage/index.php

thankks but the plugin does not use at all the color image source, so bad, i would have to peek the color myself each time.

[alanpalmer]

thankks but the plugin does not use at all the color image source, so bad, i would have to peek the color myself each time.

I very much doubt you'd find anything better. I haven't tried it myself but looking at the user guide for the plugin you'd probably have to open it in the stand-alone version then open the colour image in PSP. You could use the PSP eye dropper to get the colours and input them to to Coloriage. Their "Color Library" might make things a little easier:

The Color Library contains colors that are difficult to pick out: the color of skin, hair, lips, grass, trees, stones, etc. All colors in the Color Library are divided into groups in accordance with their function.

It would doubtless take some time and patience, but could be done fairly well I'd say, judging by their guide. The guide is at http://download.akvis.com/coloriage.pdf and it also contains links to partially finished colorising jobs, so that you can get a "feel" of the program before attempting your own.

When I get time (probably at the weekend) I think I'll download Coloriage myself and see if it's as good as it looks!

[Heavysteel]

I have been using Paintshop Pro since the early Jasc days and I have yet to see an easy method to do what you are trying to do. However the Change to Target brush which Corel added is always a great substitute in my opinion. Is it fast? Not really, but with the help of the Eyedropper tool you can mimic original colors while maintaining highlights and shadows. The Color Replacer brush also plays a key role depending on your tolerence settings for items such as hair. Here are a couple of photos. This is my Great Grandfather along with a couple clerks in his general store back in the year 1910. I decided to play around with colors and blur effects and a bit of cloning just for fun to see what this old BW photo might look like in color.

Granted the colors may be off for that time, but the idea was just to add life to the photo. I also kept the shadows quite dark to simulate the lack of intense lighting for a scene this old, but you get the idea. Everything in the photo was repainted using the methods described. Your images lack alot of extra background detail so it should be way easier to complete in a few hours maximum.

[Michael REMY]

someone told me about a method but i can imagine how t odo that with corel psp.
the process should first reduce each picture (source colored, and target n&b) to a same resolution.
then ,secondly it should reduce the color of each one to a same nuance (like a 16-color white & grey)
and, the process hsould search in each picture, where are the common texture pattern (like hair square, like background, like face shape, ..etc), then it should recopy the color from pattern source to same pattern destination.

by example, if you have a b&w photo of a zebra horse, and a colored one.
the process will discover the same pattern of "zebra zone texture", it will understand the color nuance in line , then recopy the same nuance in the destination photo where the same pattern texture is discovered there.

how to do that in psp ? possible in photoshop ?

[LeviFiction]

No quick and dirty method will give you the best results in a case like this. The lighting, the pose, and the areas are just too different. You need to match more than the colors with this image. You can get close but especially on the skin tone simply pulling direct from one to the other won't give you an exact match.

How many of these images are you looking recolor like this? Unless it's a large enough number you're wasting more time trying to find a "quick" method than just going and painting it up manually.

To answer your question, no, I do not believe that PSP or Photoshop have any such methods. In fact I know PSP doesn't. Photoshop has something that might help to match the tone with it's Color Match command but it won't try to figure out how to fit the colors and lighting to morph into a different image with similar subject matter. Now, Photoshop does have layer stacking. Where it attempts to match features in layers to align them properly so you'll have to resize the lower quality one to match the larger one then it'll try and get them as close as possible to each others location.

But you'll still have to manually paint them in. Or at least do a quick selection, and fill in the area on a separate layer and use blend modes. But you're still stuck with the method of painting.

[Heavysteel]

Here is another possible method to achieve a similar likeness.
I have copied the image in question here and I worked with about 8 different layers to include the face, lips, hair, shirt and background with a few highlight layers. I also used the the soft light blend mode on all layers while using the color picker and selecting colors from the original image and transferring them to the black and white copy. Next a few clone brush touch ups. I then warmed some of the colors a bit and added some highlights. Last... a bit more blur to the background texture to bring her forward a bit and a very slight bit of edge smoothing.
This still may not be the fastest way to colorize an image, but it does achieve some very acceptable results. You could create a script to speed the workflow, but you will still have to create manual selections for the individual layers to paint.

[Michael REMY]

Here is another possible method to achieve a similar likeness.
I have copied the image in question here and I worked with about 8 different layers to include the face, lips, hair, shirt and background with a few highlight layers. I also used the the soft light blend mode on all layers while using the color picker and selecting colors from the original image and transferring them to the black and white copy. Next a few clone brush touch ups. I then warmed some of the colors a bit and added some highlights. Last... a bit more blur to the background texture to bring her forward a bit and a very slight bit of edge smoothing.
This still may not be the fastest way to colorize an image, but it does achieve some very acceptable results. You could create a script to speed the workflow, but you will still have to create manual selections for the individual layers to paint.

your work is wonderful, in fact too wonderful . your final colored photo looks too "phosotshoped" like a cover magazin, the visage skin looks too good (as a face product loreal !) and the cloth color is bluer (while the original is dark grey (anthracite)). And the hair are a bit too light.
And the background and the eye are really the same! congratulations.
i should have tell it before, but the woman is an iranian actress and your final work makes her a little too latino/mexican. (Of course the woman remains beautiful. )

Do pick the color from my color sample photo ?

how much time did you spend to achieve this work !?

[Heavysteel]

Thanks Michael for your kind comments.
I did in fact use the sample photo for the initial sample colors, but then I selected Hue and Saturation/ Vibrancy and dialed them up a bit to change colors a bit and add some warmth. Here I dialed back the Vibrancy for each layer in question. This returned the colors to a more natural look. I did not apply edge smoothing to this image so what you see is what you get. This woman has very pretty skin without enhancing or smoothing. The sweater was returned to a more gray color by tuning down Vibrancy and the highlights on the lips were removed to an almost natural state. I see women that resemble this image in the Seattle area and I always assumed that they are Latino. Maybe I was wrong?

The actual colorizing process takes about 2 hours for a portrait and half of that time focuses on the hair outline. Once the process is perfected a person could easily complete a portrait in an hour. Allot of time is spent just sampling and experimenting with different tones. Obviously a photo with allot more background detail could take many hours to complete.

[kaymann]

Heavysteel that is absolutely fantastic!