Converting B & W photos to color

I have PhotoPlus5 and have been having trouble converting black and white photos to color. I've tried everything--layers, etc.

What am I doing wrong?

GG,

Drinking too much HB?

Geoff

You obviously mean that you want to paint in the colour by hand, right?

All you need to do then is create a new layer above the background and set its mode to colour. Then paint in your colours.

Thanks for response. I wasn't thinking of doing it by hand except for minor details. Seems that by doing it by hand, there's no opacity, which creates a problem.

I was using layers, but using a different color for each and blending them to acheive the color of flesh, etc. That didn't seem to work very well.

I'll give your suggestion a try.

I'm trying to colorize a black and white portrait of a person.

Thanks.

Hi

Can you post a sample pic here of what you have to start with?

I'm sure some of us can come up with some suggestions

Dave

Tried posting a sample pic but it was probably too large as it wouldn't load as an attachment.

Do you know the exact max size for uploading?

I used the "Attachments UPDATE" function.

I think it's about 200k but I'm not certain about that

You're doing it the right way though by the sound of it!

It seems as though you've sorted your problem now anyway?

Dave

If you weren't thinking of converting a black & white picture to colour by hand, how were you thinking of doing it? I can't believe you wanted Photoplus to automatically guess what colours went where and come up with a colour image for you, and I can think of no other way of colourising a black & white image other than by hand.

You have complete control over opactiy using the method given above. Different colour on each layer, alter the opacity to suit your tastes.

Also, when colourising, don't use the brush on 100% pressure, give it something really low, say 15-25%, and gently build up your areas.

And last but not least, remember its the layer that needs to be set to colour mode, not the brush! (you get pants results doing it that way!)

Good luck!

After a little trial & error experimenting, I finally saw what you were talking about and it worked perfectly.

Just have to practice honing down skill in using layers and colors.

Thanks a million!!

Thats good news then! Glad you got it to work how you wanted it to!

As for practicing, can't fault you! Layers are what its all about! Being able to select areas is also a valuable thing to learn too, maybe we may even get a pen tool in the next release of Photoplus to make it easier :-)

Lee, I wish I could reveal just how stunning & awesome PhotoPlus 8 really will be, but for now I'm afraid I'll have to keep shtum about all those eye-gogglingly cool new features.

Cheers, Dale. ;-)

I'm salivating already.....

Oh! I thought it was raining......

Next time I'll wear my bib!

I think it may have been something you ate, and copious amounts of HB to wash it down, that caused over-fermentation!