Trouble painting brown to colorize B/W photo

[MarkyW]

I've used Paint Shop Pro for a long, long time. Upgraded in December from PSP 2018 to PSP 2020 Ultimate.

One thing that seems to always be a problem for me is when trying to colorize a black & white photo to make the hair (or some other thing) brown or another darker color. I pick a brown to paint with, but the color ends up showing as a light purple-ish/pink-ish color, but not brown.

I can do pink skin tones, blue dress or sky, green grass and it comes out OK. Try to make brown hair or purse or shoes and I get that problem.

I think I'm doing everything right. I did a search and found a tutorial on the Corel website with a video and a transcription of all the steps on how to colorize a black & white photo. And in the tutorial they do color a purse brown. I followed along doing what it says, but it doesn't work for me with the brown.

I used to make a duplicate of the background layer and change the blend mode on the duplicate layer to "color" and do my painting to colorize. The tutorial said to make a new raster layer and have the blend mode set to "color legacy" so I did that. I don't know what the difference is between "color" and "color legacy", but I did just the way the tutorial had it. The new raster layer is blank and you paint on that to colorize the layer below. I like the idea of doing that because it said you can make a new layer for the different items you are colorizing.

But it didn't fix my problem. I can do the skin tone and the blue dress, but not the brown purse. I get that purple/pink color instead of brown.

If I click on the eye symbol to make the background layer not visible and just leave the raster layer for colorizing visible, then I can see the painted area is brown (of course, there's no background photo, just the brown paint). Then when I make the background layer visible, the brown area becomes that purple/pink color.

I think I can do a work around by leaving brown to be the last color to paint and have it be the top layer and not setting it to "color legacy" in the blend mode, but just "normal" or I also tried "burn" and then lowering the opacity of that top layer to let the background photo show through so I have some of the detail with some of the color.

But I shouldn't have to do that. Anyone have any ideas on what's going on and how I can colorize something brown?

Thanks.

(By the way, I happened to come across what I think is a glitch in how the opacity slider does not work in a certain specific instance. I will be making a separate post about that in a day or two to see if that might be a definite glitch if it does the same thing for others.)

[hartpaul]

A long description that leaves me puzzled - brown??? what shade of brown? light purplish pink ? what shade . RGB values?
Better still how about posting a cropped sample of what you want brown with a before and after image so that others can test and see if it is a commmon occurrence.

[Jean-Luc]

I think I'm doing everything right.

Do you paint with the Paint Brush or with the Change to Target tool?

Could we see a crop of the bad result you have?

[MarkyW]

I do use the paintbrush, not the Change to Target tool. And I have the blend mode on the paint brush set to normal.
I make a new raster layer and set the blend mode on the layer to Color Legacy.
RGB values for the examples I will show below are:
For the medium brown: 114, 74, 58
For the dark brown: 62, 19, 0
The photo pixel depth/colors is RGB-8 bits/channel.

This first photo shows just the background layer visible

This second photo shows just the Color Legacy layer visible so you see where the medium brown is painted and the dark brown is painted.

This last photo shows all layers visible so you see what it looks like colorized.

I realize that in shadows and darker areas of the photo the color will show more. Like where I painted the dress, it does look brown. But if I wanted a darker brown it would be almost impossible to get. Both the medium brown and dark brown that I painted on the dress look basically the same. And in highlight areas it will show less, but it still should show somewhat of a brown color. Where I painted part of the face just as an example, it looks almost like a (pinkish) flesh tone, not anything brown. As well as trying to get the hair a brown color, it doesn't look brown at all. I have brown hair. If I wanted to colorize an old black & white photo of myself when I was a kid, I wouldn't be able to give myself brown hair.

Does that extra information help any, I hope?
Thanks again.

[Jean-Luc]

It is a normal behaviour.
In Layer Color blend mode, you cannot darken the pixels. You can only colorize them without modifying their luminosity. A light grey cannot be transformed in
dark brown.
See the example attached.

I placed your two browns on differents layers above a grey chart (run the Grey Chart script if you want testing yourself).
I applied Color blend (for demonstration purpose). You see the different color renderings of different greys.

If you set the layer blend mode to Burn and reduce its Opacity, you will see a different result (see attached).

[MarkyW]

Thanks Jean-Luc. Seeing your examples with the explanation helps.

I thought maybe there was some setting that I maybe didn't have right. Sounds like setting the blend mode to Burn will be the best way to go.

Thanks again.
Mark.

[migf1]

Hello Mark,

I made a mistake and replied to a similar topic, thinking it was this one.
Here is the link to the other topic: viewtopic.php?f=56&t=66875&p=377744#p377744

PS. I am leaving it there too because it is still relevant (both topics are about colorizing B&W photos).