Elder Care Zone - Caring for the Elderly, Elder Health Care Services, Elder Home Care and More
    (Add to Favorites  |  View All Articles  |  Resource Directory)

Colorizing old black-and-white photographs


What Colour was Your Great-grandmothers Hair?


I've just made another Photoshop video. This one is about colour tinting (or "colorizing") an old photo. You may not know this, but back in the 1800's - long before colour photography was invented - people used to hand-tint black and white photographs with coloured inks or water-colour paints, and I wanted to achieve that type of effect. Tinting monochrome prints using Photoshop is considerably less messy!

The photo I decided to use was a recently restored photo of my maternal great-grandmother (my mother's, mother's, mother). It was taken sometime in the late 1880's when she probably in her late teens. It's a typical Victorian studio portrait: Great-grandma is wearing her best dress, is standing against a painted background of a garden, and has one hand resting on a rustic looking chair.

The only thing I knew for certain was that Great-grandma had blue eyes, every other colour was a conjecture. Her dress was a dark colour, and after experimenting with a few different colours, I decided that navy blue looked best. I coloured in the background light green - although it could have been cyan. The bamboo chair was obviously a bamboo colour. That just left the colour of her hair to try and figure out.

My maternal grandmother had strawberry-blonde hair in her younger days (I've seen colour photos of her when she was young) but when I tried to colour her mother's hair that colour, it just didn't look right. Too light. Auburn? No, that didn't look right either. I asked my mother, but she had no idea. Great-grandma was a white-haired old lady by the time my mother came along.

The only thing I could do was just to play about with the colour sliders until her hair looked "right". That's when I made a profound discovery: my great-grandmother's hair was brown - like mine! It was the only colour that looked natural.

My great-grandmother and I never met, but thanks to Photoshop, I now have a better idea of what she looked like than would have been possible just from a black and white photo.

I've posted her picture on my webpage.

Shaun Pearce is a writer and video maker. His latest production "Photoshop Master" shows you how to get the most from Photoshop, and can be downloaded from http://www.learnphotoshopfast.com.


MORE RESOURCES:

News provided by Yahoo! News and Google News

Call for regulation of elderly care workers after gagging - Wairarapa Times Age

Call for regulation of elderly care workers after gagging
Wairarapa Times Age, New Zealand - Jul 3, 2008
By Nathan Crombie The gagging of a rest home resident in Auckland has sparked an urgent Wairarapa call to regulate elderly care workers nationally to ...

Govt to spend $300m on elderly care - The Age

Govt to spend $300m on elderly care
The Age, Australia - Jun 27, 2008
The federal government will spend almost $300 million to free up public hospital beds by equipping frail, elderly people to move back into their homes. ...

Liberals promise to improve elderly care - The Kingston Whig-Standard

Liberals promise to improve elderly care
The Kingston Whig-Standard, Canada - Jul 9, 2008
ONTARIO HAS TO DO A"BETTER JOB" when it comes to caring for its elderly parents and grandparents, Premier Dalton McGuinty said yesterday in the face of ...

Chattanooga: Elderly Care Needs Rise - RedOrbit

Chattanooga: Elderly Care Needs Rise
RedOrbit, TX - Jul 13, 2008
By Emily Bregel, Chattanooga Times/Free Press, Tenn. Jul. 13--Dr. Lorna Birch listened with growing awe as the 85-year-old woman in her office ticked off ...

New Film Exposes Bruce Wasserstein and Lazard-linked Elderly Care ... - eMediaWorld.com Newswire Press Release Distribution Service (Press Release)

New Film Exposes Bruce Wasserstein and Lazard-linked Elderly Care ...
eMediaWorld.com Newswire Press Release Distribution Service (Press Release), AZ - Jul 10, 2008
ACTION: Activists take to streets for 'Rolling matinee' throughout US to debut film targeting Lazard CEO NEW YORK, July 9 /eMediaWorld-USNewswire/ ...

Dignity charter bid for Chorley elderly care home providers - Chorley Citizen

Dignity charter bid for Chorley elderly care home providers
Chorley Citizen, UK - Jul 13, 2008
Home Care providers across the county, which includes those in Chorley, have joined Lancashire County Council and the Lancashire Care Association (LCA) in ...

home | site map | articles
© 2006