Photoshop 2021's Neural Filters -- Rapid Colorization of Black & White Photos

The latest version of Photoshop has something called Neural filters, which greatly streamline various editing tasks,  My favorite so far is colorization of black and white photographs.

Adding color to black and white photographs really brings them to life.  For example, here is photo of Marilyn Monroe that I colorized with Photoshop.  

I have been colorizing photos for family and friends for the past couple of weeks.  Some examples are below.

Pretty cool, hey?  Colorizing makes the pics more realistic and vivid.

 

More On "The Kill Osama" Coloring Book (With Color Suggestions for Kids!)

Uncolored Depiction of Osama Buying the Farm

It appears the coloring book depicting Osama's death has caused a lot of controversy. Well, I can see why. It may be too harsh a subject matter for little kids. I wouldn't buy the coloring book for my grandkids. Not that I mind depictions of Osama cashing in his chips, I have done a few in my time. But mine weren't intended for small children.

When I was a kid with coloring books, there weren't any depicting American troops mowing down Nazis, even though it was soon after World War II. I drew my own, of course, but there weren't any commercially available. It was just too brutal a subject matter for children.

I found an actual page online from the controversial coloring book and it is above left.  Below the uncolored version is one I colored in with Photshop CS5.  This latest version of Photoshop is very cool, and I colored the picture to see what CS5 could do, as well as for laughs.  Pass this example along to your little kids so they can properly depict Osama getting his head blown off.  You sick puppy!

Seriously, to help your children color it right, buy them a $1,000 copy of Photoshop CS5 and a new laptop.  Beats the heck out of color crayons any day.

Even more seriously, I read that cartoonist Garry Trudeau uses Photoshop to color his drawings.  He draws them first in pencil, then goes over them in black ink, then has staff scan them into a graphic file (probably a jpg).  Staff then uploads the scan into Photoshop where any imperfections can be easily corrected.  You can erase unnecessary lines and use the liquid filter to reshape parts of the drawing that aren't quite right.  Finally, you can use the magic wand tool to easily color sections of the scanned drawing (as I did in the example above).  If you really want to impress, you can copy and paste garment patterns into the pants, shirts, etc, using the "paste into" option.

By the way, I didn't pay full price for my copy of CS5, since I am a long-time user and only have to pay an update price.  This exercise has made me aware that I may be able to create some better graphic art.  I can draw pretty well using pencil and paper, not as well with a graphic tablet.  Then I can do the scan and color in CS5.  Gotta try it (actually, I already did, see previous post about the coloring book).

Colorizing a Black and White Photo

I am fascinated by past generations, the people who lived before us in this great nation. It ties in with my interest in history. I love to browse antique shops, where amidst the musty-smelling junk I sometimes find some an interesting artifact, a small window into the past.

Old photos are a favorite, just common photos of ordinary people. It's interesting to see what kinds of fashions they wore, what kinds of hairstyles. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, men often wore detachable collars held on to their shirts by brass studs. Some of those detachable collars look weird to us today - they could be very tall and look quite uncomfortable. Even more so when they were made of celluloid, a stiff paper-like material that was quite flammable. It could be dangerous smoking a cigar while wearing one of those!

I sometimes colorize old black and white photographs using Photoshop, just to see what the person would look like in the here and now. The results can be stunning. It's like breathing life into the old photos. Take for example this photo of a young woman graduate from New Haven, Connecticut, circa 1910. Colorizing her makes her seem more lifelike, more in the present. The past, after all, was not in black and white; only the photos were.

Bottom photo: a young businessman circa 1900. Note the high celluloid collar.

In Photoshop, you colorize a black and white photo, not by painting it, but by changing the color balance. Using the magic wand tool, you can select one area of the photo, say the face, and change the color balance by turning up the red. Each different area has to be cordoned off digitially, then colorized by changing the color balance.

It's also a great technique for restoring modern color photos that have faded.