Colorization – Third Coat

By Phil Hecken, with “The Jeff” Provo

A few weekends back, I began the first of two tutorials on colorization. Many of you e-mailed me to thank me and a couple of you even sent me some of your first attempts. The following week, I tried to convey my technique for colorizing black and white photographs, this too was met with some positive feedback. However, as I stated then, I’m still pretty much of a novice at this, and the way I tried to teach you was one of many techniques. There are other ways to do this, and other programs with which you can work. Today, I’m privileged to present The Jeff, who himself is quite skilled in the art of colorization.

I asked The Jeff if he would take you through his techniques. He’s taken me up on the offer and he’s done a great job. So without further ado, I present, Colorization – Third Coat, featuring The Jeff:

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Recently, Phil has shown us one way to colorize photos. Phil’s method involves coloring on top of the image and using multiple layers. While it does work fairly well in most cases, it has some limitations and is, essentially, the digital equivalent to using a crayola marker on a newspaper. It’s a great starting point, but it’s not the only way to do it. So, today we’re going to look at another, slightly more advanced method which is less about coloring and more along the lines of image manipulation.

Rather than directly coloring the picture, we’re going to be changing it’s attributes. You won’t need to deal with any extra layers this time, everything is done to the base image. We won’t be going step-by-step this time — I will merely show you the tool and explain the basic concept of how to use it. Before we get to that however, I’d like to take a moment to remind everyone how colors are represented and identified within the program.

Colors are most commonly represented with an RGB (red-green-blue) value. In addition to that — they are also represented by a specific Hue, Saturation and Value (also referred to as Lightness). The Hue represents the actual color, the Saturation is how much of the color is in use — higher saturation is a bolder color, zero saturation is gray, and the Value is how light or dark the color is. For example, Royal Blue and Red, while drastically different hues, have nearly the same value. This is important to remember, as these are the attributes which we’ll be modifying to do our colorizations.

The tool we’ll be using is up in the top menu, where many people are afraid to explore, and is called Colorize. The process is incredibly easy once you realize it’s there. Let’s say you have part of an image that you want to be blue — maybe it’s a jersey, maybe it’s a helmet, whatever. All you have to do is go to the color box on the left side and click to change the color — figure out exactly what color you want — and remember the Hue listed for that color.

Then, you simply use the select tool to select everything that should be that color, even if it’s in a shadow or has glare on it. Next, you use the Colorize tool and change the Hue to the color you need.

You may also have to play with the Saturation and Lightness, but that will vary a bit depending on the picture at hand. If you do have to adjust the lightness, you may also need to change the contrast of the selection to compensate for the extra lightness. The Contrast tool is directly below the colorization in the menu and is rather self explanatory. This doesn’t come into play much with black & white shots, but can bit a bit of a problem when dealing with something like changing navy to yellow. The basic process is exactly the same whether you’re changing a black & white photo to color, or if you’re just changing some red numbers to blue to see how they look.

The most important thing is to be patient and precise with your selections. It’s not uncommon to need at least a few hours to properly finish a picture.

Ideally, you’ll want to be able to use both methods to truly be effective. Sometimes you’ll want to keep the glare, sometimes you’ll want it more subdued. If you want to make a white jersey red, you have to do it with layers. If you want to make a red jersey blue, you need the colorize tool. Every picture is different. You may even have occasions where you’ll want to use both techniques on the same image. So, just find a picture and play around with it. The more you work with the program, the better you’ll get. If you’re a bit confused, I will try to answer any specific questions in the comments section. Enjoy!

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Thanks, The Jeff. Interestingly, after my tutorials, The Jeff actually presented me a critique (for which I am grateful) and which is a great addendum to the previous two tutorials. I’ll add it below since he brings up some other tricks of the trade:

Well, if we’re sticking to black & white, the method you’re using works fairly well. In fact, I use the same basic method when dealing with some colored images myself. (turning the Chargers pants from blue to yellow — colorization tool; seeing how the Browns would look with orange jerseys & brown pants – coloring a new layer) The only major drawbacks are that it doesn’t work particularly well on things like helmet glare — you end up drawing over the glare and it becomes much more subdued than the original, and it doesn’t work for changing colors to other colors.

I do have a few small tips though:

1. If you weren’t aware, the selection tool has multiple modes — you may want to set it on “Add” rather than the default of “Replace” — so you can make multiple small selections and chain them all together into one big selection, then filling, instead of the “select, fill, select, fill” that you used in the tutorial.

1a. Alternatively, because you’re working on a separate layer, you can just use the max zoom and free-hand the coloring with the paintbrush tool. I find that to be a little bit quicker sometimes.

2. Instead of just playing with transparency, set your layer to “Multiply”. This will allow you to use brighter colors without losing the underlying details.

3. A bit of a cheat — if at all possible, start with a larger image than what you actually need — when you resize it down, it can hide some minor mistakes or overlaps you might have made.

I think you’ll also want to make sure to remind people that it’s not a quick process, especially doing a full black & white photo. Patience is a very important virtue.

Once again, great tips, The Jeff.

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Just to kind of add to that tutorial, shortly after the second colorization segment, I received another reader tip from Michael Ferry, which reiterates and amplifies what The Jeff said above, this time specific to those who use Photoshop (although the technique works across many photo manipulation programs):

Phil,

Hi, I’m a longtime Uniwatch reader, and on rare occasion have added to comments, etc.

Really enjoyed reading the tutorial re: Colorizing black and white photos.

A couple of times Paul was kind enough to post links of some photos I colorized in Photoshop (sorry I don’t have them — I’m at work right now.) Some time ago I stumbled upon the fact that the “Fill” command has a number of options, including “Color,” which saturates the selection with the foreground color, but retains shadows, folds, etc. For a quick colorizing, it does reasonably well.

Note: I have a VERY old copy of Photoshop — version 4.0. Also, the picture format has to be set to RGB (or CMYK) for the color option to appear in the fill command.

That said, I’ll take a step-by-step run through of your tutorial once I have the chance. Thanks again for posting it.

Regards,
Michael Ferry

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Another one I enjoyed:

Hi Phil,

I thoroughly enjoyed the tutorial you featured in today’s blog. Since I use Photoshop, it was easy to follow step-by-step as the programs have many of the same features.

Thanks for taking the time to share. It’s certainly appreciated.

Jerry Reuss

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And finally, one more reader e-mail I wanted to share about the joys of colorization, from Stephen Brookman. Steve also brings up one of the more salient points for those of us who colorize — getting the colors right:

Hey Phil, your articles the past few weekends have inspired me to colorize an old photo of Sammy Baugh that I found on Shorpy a few years back.

I’m sure it needs some work, but I think it’s a good start. I think the biggest challenge isn’t the act of colorizing, but trying to fine tune the colors. I really had a hell of a time deciding on what tones were right for the logo in the middle of the jersey.

Anyway, thanks for the inspiration…have a great weekend.

–Steve

And thank you Steve. OK, folks. This will close the third coat of the colorization series. Hope you enjoyed it, and a big tip of the cap to The Jeff for helping out with Part III of the Colorization series. If any of you readers out there are colorizers (and I know many of you are), and would like to offer more tips, suggestions or ideas, please get in touch with me. I’d like to feature more techniques in colorization in future articles.

Happy colorization, and if you have any questions, like The Jeff said above, please post them in the comments.

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Uni Tweaks

Catching up with the tweaks, but they keep coming in (which is good), so lots to get to today. If you have a tweak, change or concept for any sport, send them my way.

You guys have been pretty great keeping to the ~50 word limit per team tweak, and it’s greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Now, on to today’s tweaks:

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Starting off the show is Tim O’Brien, who kept to the 50 word description, but added a bit of set up. It’s for the Hoosiers. Here’s Tim:

As a recent graduate, I’m tired of Indiana’s Identity problem.

For years, Indiana has been a school without uniform identity. Whether it was the Marching Hundred wearing navy blue uniforms, the football team’s black helmets and BFBS unifroms or the track team’s blue and red uniforms, for almost two decades the Hoosiers (aside from the Men’s basketball team’s classic uni) have failed to look like a unified university.

This problem was somewhat resolved in the early 2000s when all the different color schemes and multiple logos were simplified to cream and crimson and the interlocking IU Logo.

And yet the IU football team still struggles to find a visual identity. From looking like an Oklahoma Sooner carbon copy (IU Home and Away versus UO Home and Away), to looking like a cheap, non-licensed Wisconsin or Nebraska knockoff from the neck down (this years hideous Hoosiers compared Wisconsin and Nebraska) the Hoosiers’ lack original and visually appealing uniforms typifies a team that lacks an on field identity.

Well, I’m sick and tired of it. When people think of IU athletics, they think Men’s basketball, Assembly Hall and the candy stripes. The stripes are all over campus. Painted on Assembly Hall, on fans (on crowds for “Stripe Out” games), on gorillas and even on the brand new scoreboard in the south endzone of Memorial Stadium. I say, why fight it anymore, bring on the Stripes.

Here’s my design:
Home and Away

I love IU’s current helmet but long for the days of white facemasks, it’s just a classic look. And speaking of classic, I kept the mid 2000s/1990s/1980s etc. jerseys for their simplicity (lord knows the pants are busy enough) and their historical significance. If they were good enough for the likes of Anthony Thompson and Trent Green, they’re good enough for Ben Chappell and company.

Thanks for your time,

Tim E. O’Brien

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Next up is Glenn Whitmore, who apparently likes burgundy. A lot:

Mr. Hecken,

I stumbled onto your website a few week ago and I enjoy it very much.

I’m a big fan of the the Phils and favor their burgundy era graphics. Attached is a jpg for a concept should they return to that, which is a tweak of the “Saturday Special” from 1979. It’s something I feel is a little more sleeker.

Best wishes,
Glenn Whitmore

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And finally, we have Michael Schlossberg, who felt there weren’t enough BFBS college teams yet:

Phil,
Big fan of the Uniwatch, and I wanted to try a tweak of my own. I attached it via paint. I am a Senior at the University of Arizona and want to see the Wildcats come out in BFBS jerseys for Football and Basketball for National TV games. The basketball jersey was inspired by West Virginia wearing a black jersey even though their colors are Navy and Gold. The football one will keep this year’s current helmet style.

Michael S. Schlossberg

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That’s all for today. Back tomorrow with more.

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Colorize This!

Occasionally, I will be featuring wonderful, high-quality black and white photographs that are just begging to be colorized. Today’s inaugural photograph comes from the wonderful Shorpy site that is frequently mentioned on Uni Watch. For those of you who don’t know Shorpy.com, you really need to check it out. Not only does it have thousands of gorgeous old black and white photos, in many different categories (sports is just one small taste of what they have to offer), there is also a great section comprised of colorized photographs. Many of their photos are in incredibly high resolution and are very high quality, which make for a great one-two combination for colorizing.

Here is today’s featured photograph. The caption is, Washington, D.C., circa 1913. “Jacinto Calvo, ‘Germany’ Schaefer, Merito Acosta, Washington Nationals.” Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative.

According to baseball historian Marcus Okkonen, the 1913 Nationals dressed like this. Should be a great challenge to colorize — notice the three players have unmatched stirrups, and two of the players have modifications to their uniforms — the player on the left has short sleeves (possibly cut off and hemmed) and is wearing a thick wool turtleneck sweater (as Paul would say, “Look at that texture!”), and the player in the middle has added what looks to be a mourning (or memorial) band to his left sleeve. If I were guessing at the colors, I’d say the sweater is probably a navy and the band is almost assuredly black.

Give it a shot, all you colorizers! Send me your finished copy (and colorize as much or as little as you want), and I’ll feature those results next weekend. OK? OK!

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Best Hallowe’en Uni Ever?

Tomorrow is Hallowe’en. Very appropriate for the San Francisco Giants, who’ll be wearing Orange and Black — and their special Sunday caps. The Bengals will be hosting the Dolfish tomorrow. So we may see at least two teams in orange and black.

Looking back through the years, which team had the best ‘special’ Hallowe’en uni? The Vols broke out black over orange last year. The Pack had some fun in 1994.

But are those the best uniforms we’ve seen for Hallowe’en? I’m trying to come up with some good ones for tomorrow. Post your best pics/suggestions in the comments below or send me your thoughts.

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• Alright, folks, that’s it for today. Pretty good college football today, and of course, the World Series comes to the Metroplex. Of course, I’m STILL not getting Fox, which is really pissing me off. Here’s hoping we see some crazy unis today in honor of All Hallow’s Eve. And Auburn has been asked to wear their blue home jerseys for an away game against Ole Miss — wonder if they have any special uni planned.

• And, all you Pro Combat fans, don’t forget Florida straps on their super hero costumes today in the Florida Football Classic in J-ville. Remember when this used to be a big game? Well, it will still be the World’s Latest Outdoor Cocktail Party.

• Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, along comes The Mothervilker. Seriously.

• Have a safe trip to the “Devil’s Jockstrap” Roberto. KC here you come.

• Everybody have a great Saturday. Three days to go.

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Seriously, you want to like fellow UW’ers, but that isn’t always possible. — The one and only Robert Marshall