As so many of you seemed interested in the group photograph I coloured, here’s a ‘how to’ guide for you to try yourself. All are done in Photoshop 7, with the lassoo tool, and ‘edit – copy – edit – paste’ followed by ‘image – adjust – colour balance’ and desaturated with ‘image – adjust – hue/saturation’. Contrast is controlled in ‘image – adjust – levels’ and/or ‘image – adjust – brightness/contrast’. Work with your black and white image in RGB colour space, and once an area is copied, pasted and coloured, use the erase tool from the palette to get rid of any excess areas.
For this exercise, which took just over an hour, I have used a photograph of Sergeant Johnny Wiseman of 609 (West Riding) Squadron.
The base picture:
By: Chris G - 16th April 2004 at 22:17
Monitors
JDK
Monitors and Adobe gamma.exe are important. Hence why TFT and graphics don’t mix, yet….
watched any good videos recently James??
By: Arm Waver - 16th April 2004 at 10:22
Nice picture. Colour brings it to life. Plus reinforces what a fantastic piece of kit the Typhoon is.
By: JDK - 16th April 2004 at 09:57
Good point about monitors earlier.
Often overlooked is that Mac monitors usually are lighter or brighter than PC monitors. My iMac at home shows up all the joins on the Key publishing header here, for instance (the blue values don’t all match properly) compared to what PC viewers see.
When working to a top standard on the web, you’ve got to cross check platforms etc. Not an important point in Snappers’ work (very interesting BTW) but if anyone is thinking of taking it further.
Cheers
By: Snapper - 16th April 2004 at 00:57
Guess so.
By: Chris Broad - 16th April 2004 at 00:43
I’m confused… A type underwing roundels with C type fuselage roundels?
Nice work btw Snapper.
By: Snapper - 16th April 2004 at 00:12
Another one for you. Johnny Wiseman and Babe Haddon with Spit, on a Typhoon.
By: Snapper - 11th April 2004 at 21:51
Don’t mind at all old boy. Had tried with the skin tones and had the same result – the greying of the skin just looked grim. I have done it to the tunic and cap though. I had the badge lighter and contrastier as well, but it just drew attention to the rest. Hopefully the print should be controllable instead.
By: Col. Gibbon - 11th April 2004 at 21:47
A BIG THANKS for posting the how to! 🙂
By: LesB - 11th April 2004 at 21:29
Hi Snapper
Taking liberties here, not trying to teach egg sucking or anything, but is this any better? Used some gamma correct and a “soften” tool to ease the “brown” skin tone resulting from a contrasty original. Messed about with other attributes as well though :rolleyes: – like slightly darkening the uniform, lightening the cap badge, stuff like that.
Mind you, with the variation in PC monitor settings etc, I may be seeing a different pic to you. Still, hope you don’t mind. 😀
By: Snapper - 11th April 2004 at 20:38
This is Francois de Spirlet, the next 609 pilot i’ll be raising a memorial to.
This picture was contrasty and grainy (and very scratched / dirty). It was, in fact, an absolute pig to work on. After about 5 hours or so this is the ebst I could come up with – but it isn’t right.
By: LesB - 11th April 2004 at 16:51
RobAnt
How does one go about ensuring the correct colours, and textures?
If this was addressed to me, well. . .
“Textures” are built into the original photo.
“Colours” are in my mind’s eye – having been there and done that! 😀 :rolleyes:
By: RobAnt - 11th April 2004 at 14:43
Wonderful.
I haven’t tried this, but may in future.
How does one go about ensuring the correct colours, and textures?
By: archieraf - 11th April 2004 at 14:11
Colours
I visited a site today which might be helpful for anyone trying to work out correct colouring for various articles of clothing – particularly Irvine jackets – as it has photographs. http://www.aeroleatherclothing.com/webapp/aeroleather/servlet/AeroViewPage?page=home
The WW2 Militaria section has some interesting bits and pieces.
By: LesB - 11th April 2004 at 11:06
RobAnt
I use PaintShop Pro 7, can the same results be achieved with that?
Pretty much. This was done in PaintShop Pro a year or so back. Not a very good original of course and was done in a hurry, but the bloke was well chuffed with the result.
By: Snapper - 11th April 2004 at 09:58
Cheers Robbo. There are another type which are green canvas – all 3 types are in this picture.
And i’m working on another one – which needs a few hours spent on restoration first!!
RobAnt – I haven’t used Painshop Pro. You probabbly can, but I wouldn’t know the tools. I believe DamienB uses that program, so he may be able to help.
By: Chris G - 10th April 2004 at 23:28
Mark, I hope you are happy to do the same with video at 25 fps………
By: RobAnt - 10th April 2004 at 20:29
Lovely work, Snapper – I use PaintShop Pro 7, can the same results be achieved with that?
By: Snapper - 10th April 2004 at 20:00
As their story is so eternally linked, I decided to do the same with a photograph of Flight Sergeant ‘Babe’ Haddon today.
By: Hatton - 10th April 2004 at 18:28
Lancman, if you have a Lancaster you would like doing then PM me, anything to keep in practice on Photoshop seven is handy.
best regards, steve
By: Stieglitz - 10th April 2004 at 13:31
Great job Snapper. Very nice to see the several steps of the change! TOP! 😎
J.V.
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April 10, 2004 at 12:27 am