Colorizing B&W WWII Photos

[DetCord12B]

I took a stab at this ridiculously intricate process for the first time almost two months ago, though results are somewhat iffy IMHO. Has anyone else attempted this?

 

 

 

[HBPencil]

I've been colourising old photos for years now. My advice for people who are new to the art is:

 

1 - Be patient. There are no real short cuts to getting a good result, it takes time to accurately colour the various elements of an image and to add all the slight but necessary details. The more effort one puts in the better the outcome.

 

2 - Practice and experiment. Try different techniques, one that doesn't work on one photo might work well on another photo.

 

3 - Layers, layers and more layers. Don't be afraid to use as many adjustment layers for each block of colour as you want, there's no such thing as too much! E.g. something I've noticed that many new colourisers do (and some very experienced ones as well!) is that they don't de-saturate colours that are in shadow, which results in the shaded areas looking unnaturally vibrant.

Good luck

P.S. although too small to see much,my avatar is a colourised photo.

Edited November 14, 2020 by HBPencil