Hand Tinted Rose
There was a time when if you wanted a color photograph, the photographer would have to hand tint the black and white photo with colored dyes. This was a very detailed, time consuming process but the result is a beautiful “old fashioned” look that I’ve always loved. When I received this cool young photo of my grandmother Rose, a woman who often wore bright pinks and blues, I knew I was going to have to give it a try – only instead of using dye, I’d use Photoshop.
This is the original photo. As you can see, it’s quite nice – very textured from the paper it was printed on, and only a few minor imperfections.
The first thing I did was scan it, and do some clean up, so it would look like this. I also desaturated it (made it all grey) which removed some of the tiny brown spots that were splattered about.
I had the fortune to know my grandmother so I knew she had beautiful blue eyes, light brown hair and a fair, rosy complexion. I started this project trying to approximate those colors myself – but it turned out to be a real roll of the dice, fifty bazillion shades of blue and brown all considered. Then, I had an idea. I could sample colors from an actual photo of her! I had this one, the grandmother I knew growing up.
A few wild and fun hours later – voila – a “hand tinted” old photo of Rose! As with the traditional method, the goal is to get as life like as possible but of course, there is nothing like the real bloom on a Rose’s cheek (hey now, don’t groan!). I found that laying on flat color was relatively easy but for it to look right, quite a bit of fine tuning, detailed painting and color adjustment was needed to give it depth and realism.
Here’s a closer view so you can see the great texture that is in this image.
For a really nice effect on your old black and white family photos, let’s give tinting a whirl!
Tags: family, family history, gift idea, tinted photo
