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[AP] Colorization


EZeemering

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so cool! Good work!

 

FInd me at:

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GM-Photography-142947659079869/

 

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gmphotography32/

 

or my personal website, not kept frequently up to date: www.gmphotography.ca

 

I use Affinity Photo, Lightroom, Panorama Maker 5, and Photomatix for my photography.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

Thanks MEB. More than happy to share my work while I still fiddle around with various techniques. Last two days I was playing around with AP's native blend mode instead of the cumbersome luminosity masks. Was a bit counter-intuitive at first but once you get the hang of it, it produces stellar results. I'll stick to them for a while ;) 

 

Background story here on my FB page.

alfred-schultheiss-export-wm.png

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These are amazing. Could you post a before and after of one of the shots. I have some very old black and white photos and am unsure just what is achievable.

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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I already planned on doing that. This forum has it's emphasis on the how and not so much on the end-result. I have fine-tuned my workflow in 3 general steps. The scanning is not done in AP but the restoration of the original is. Second stage is masking all the areas and tone (colour) them. The masking is done with contrasting, and mostly wrong colours. If all the masking is done the colours are changed to correct colours. Final stage is colour grading and other post techniques very common to regular photography post production.

 

So here it is: life in the 20th century without Affinity Designer :D 

img570-3fold.png

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15 hours ago, DM1 said:

These are amazing. Could you post a before and after of one of the shots. I have some very old black and white photos and am unsure just what is achievable.

 

You'd be surprised of what can be done. Why not post one, maybe I can give some advice.

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Your examples, and this wonderful app AP, have inspired me to have a go. I have tried several methods today, so far with mixed results. I find the Recolour Adjustment not very effective as it only vary's hues with limited impact on B&W. Colour replacement works reasonably well, but is 'destructive' in nature. Creating a pixel layer and changing the layer option to colour, selecting a brush and a colour, then painting onto the layer is giving me a reasonable result but is currently very difficult to do due to the bug in the beta version. The bug makes it very difficult to choose (and retain) a colour. I will post a result here but suspect I will need to wait for the next beta which apparently fixes the colour selection bug.:/

You mention masking and toning to set initial colours. That sound interesting. Could you point me to where I might find more information relating to this technique?  I would not wish to take up too much of your time but any information you offer is greatly appreciated by this beginner!

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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I never use pixel layers because I like to stick to non-destructive layers. Plus pixel layers make the file exponential larger. This one of Kay Aldridge was done for Reddit. You can check out exactly how I did this one on Twitch. 3 hours in 2 sessions. The videos are active for 1 month I think: https://www.twitch.tv/notredamnn/videos/all Source file can be found here

 

Don't hesitate to ask anything, that's what this forum is for after all ;)

 

 

kay-aldridge-export-wm.png

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I had a play around with gradient maps on the b&w image. I think from a beginners perspective the absence of a colour picker to help set the gradient points makes this more difficult. Perhaps saving a range of presets over time will help but I'd really like to see a colour picker.

so far I have used two gradient maps, one for skin tone and one for lips. My process is to create the mask, invert it (to black) and paint in the required areas in white. Then open the tone map settings and try to match colours in highlight area and shadow area with a coloured face placed in the b&w photo for reference.

Here's my initial result (just tone mapping) applied.

 

D9BF3C4C-A2C6-4EB7-8456-19AF3ED068DC.jpeg

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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9 hours ago, DM1 said:

My process is to create the mask, invert it (to black) and paint in the required areas in white. Then open the tone map settings and try to match colours in highlight area and shadow area with a coloured face placed in the b&w photo for reference.

 

That's how I started. But there is no need to make a mask first. The adjustment layers are a mask themselves. Just add a Gradient, invert the layer (or not if it's not needed) and paint on it with the brush. 

 

But that's not a bad start. Better than most beginners. Most of the time they start with pixel layers and really oversaturated colours ;) 

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In the twitch tv example it seemed many more points were added to the gradient map. Does this allow greater tonal control? I have found a few PS tutorials on gradient toning but so far nothing using AP especially on iPad.

Do you save your gradient presets on iPad and reuse/retweak? Perhaps an area where Serif could provide a few more presets. The existing ones are too dramatic.

Why on earth does the default gradient setting have blues and greens! :S It seems a terrible place to start.

 

edit. Just viewed the tv showing your work above. Amazing techniques and very helpful. Hadn't realised you could stack gradient maps and use them that way. Also some use of Recolour with Gradient map in eyes. I must try to adapt some of these techniques to the iPad.

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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Ahh I'm on a laptop, now your beta comments make sense. So yeah there might be some technical differences between the 2 versions. But the ground basics apply to both. 

 

Yeah I use multiple points in my gradient, it will give more control and more effects. For example the base colour of metal is dark grey but the highlights are often blueish. I save the most used gradients, it just saves time. 

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  • 1 month later...
2 minutes ago, EZeemering said:

I wish I had more time for this stuff.

 

So do I! I never tire of looking at your wonderful work. :)

 

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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