Need help with converting black & white skin tones to color

KS
Posted By
Ken_Sidler
Jan 14, 2007
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1052
Replies
2
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Closed
Colorized hair and eyes with no problem. Is there any way to accurately convert a black & white photo’s skin tones to color? I’ve expanded my pixel sampling to 3×3 on the color replacement tool, but it still comes out as a solid pink.

Thanks
Ken

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C
chrisjbirchall
Jan 14, 2007
There is a hand-colouring tutorial here:

<http://www.dpandi.com/howtos/handcolor/>

….and I’m sure Google will deliver hundreds more.
IS
Ian_Slater
Jan 14, 2007
I have a quirky but simple way to colourize pictures using just the Colour Balance tool (Image > Adjustments > Colour Balance).
Select the area you want to colour then, with the radio button on the default Midtones setting and Preserve Luminosity checked, use the sliders until you get a colour that looks right. Then click OK.
Go back into Colour Balance, this time select Shadows and increase the blue slightly. Ok again, re-open again, select the Highlights button and slightly raise the yellow.
I find this tool makes creating realistic colours quite easy, admittedly mainly with outdoor landscapes and shades of green.
The Preserve Luminosity setting ensures all shades remain true to the original. The variations for highlights and shadows reflects reality and avoids the flat colour look in the face in the example in the tutorial quoted above.
Good luck – it’s fun!

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