hi bill, no worries, its a shame as its a great portrait but thank you very much for trying, your time and effort are very much appreciated,
once again many thanks for giving it a go !,
kind regards and all best wishes
john.
hi bill, no worries, its a shame as its a great portrait but thank you very much for trying, your time and effort are very much appreciated,
once again many thanks for giving it a go !,
kind regards and all best wishes
john.
I know John, It is tough not being able to complete photos like that. Even not being able to show people what I mean when the colors just don't "stick" to the photo correctly is frustrating to me. I find that a lot of allied photos (especially ww1) have problems being colorized....quality of paper being used and all that.
Here is one of my portraits I just colorized.....
Dang Bill! You have gotten very good at this! You're truly a graphic artist! (I think you should label this thread:"Warning, graphic images") lol. But seriously, these are fantastic and bring new life to the past. Thanks,
Dean.
AWESOME photos John. You are very lucky to have such photos of your Father!
Here comes a short and very brief answer lol (There is a lot of different methods involved, so hard to explain em all in one answer)
Firstly I agree, your Dad's pics were most likely done by the same person/studio. In the early 40's, while real color "film" was just coming out to the public (expensive), colorizing portraits was still very popular if you could find someone that could do it. A lot of Photos like this were actually sepia toned and then hand-colorized/tinted~! (There were other ways too). So that is why some look better than others, as it was like art.....each person did it differently and added their own flavor! Things like water color paints (& color powders), dyes (blotting paper), oils, and even wax (crayons) were used to literally hand color over the image, and then through different methods it was "developed/printed" (in short!).
Hand colored portraits are a collectable, especially ww2 ones....and monetarily they normally fetch a little more than a b/w.
P.S.- Thanks Dean! I'm Glad you are still enjoying them man. The more detailed the image, the better they come out.
Last edited by Bill T; 07-20-2013 at 06:30 PM.
thanks for your reply bill, most interesting, I think for the time the colour pic is very good !, I thought the cap badge was maybe too dark on the colour pic, but looking at the b&w pic, maybe it was one of the plastic/Bakelite cap badges ? , I have dads shoulder titles (cloth) and the Africa star ribbon with first army clasp safe at home !,
kind regards,
john.
John,
I agree.....I love the color job on that portrait! Im not positive, but I think it could have been done using the dye method.
BTW I did your Fathers Portrait since I couldn't do the other one for you. Im not sure what colors the ribbon bar is....so if you could let me know, Id be happy to fill it in! Let me know if you would like anything changed.
Edit: just realized you posted saying it is the Afrika ribbon. So I will color it in!
bill, that's brilliant !, yes the medal ribbon is the british Africa star, thank you very much for this, the pics mean a lot to the family,will post some pics of dads medals and badges when I charge up the cam batteries this week, heading to the western front (ypres) next week to trace grandfather's steps during ww1, in sept. hope to go with my daughter to monte cassino to trace dads war,
all the best,
john.
just looking through my files, here are grandfather's medals, cap badge and dog tags from ww1 ( not a great pic, took on my old camera which was only 3mp) the first dog tag is for the kings own Yorkshire light infantry, as is the cap badge , the other two dog tags are for the 3rd London regiment (royal fusiliers), which grandfather was posted to at the beginning of 1918 wnen his koyli battalion was disbanded.
No prob Bill, you deserve the praise, bro! You're right about the early hand colorized pics. I took a photography class in HighSchool . One assignment was where we had to take 35 mm photos, enlarge the negatives,develope the photos in B/W then colorized them by hand. The method we used was a kind of soft crayon, like lipstick and carefully apply subtle color to cheeks, eyes , hair and so on..I believe we used Q-tips or the like to apply/blend it.
I have an original ww2 German photo, period done in this fashion. The color is pretty light, mostly visible are the collar litzen. I apologize if the image isn't clear, as my scanner is dead (R.I.P.) so Im Using a crappy iPad tablet.
Cheers,
Dean
Last edited by Dean; 07-21-2013 at 04:39 PM.
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