i too will try this... and psst, he gave you the B&W version of the hotchick, do that people

Flesh is different colors all over the body. The cheeks are usually redish compared to the rest of the face. The area around the eyes has its own tones as well as the forehead are. Depending on the blood flow in that area, the flesh can be yellowish, pinkish, or pale. Hair also has so many different shades in it. That is why you can always tell if someone dyed thier hair. The dye is one color. Real hair has so many different shades and tones in it that it is very hard to create that with a dye job. Colorizing should be done with the same thought in mind. If your painting a picture with oils do you use the same color for all flesh or do you mix it up? You mix it up of course. You should colorize the same way. It is not easy but well done things never are. Most of the tutorials show you to cut out areas and fill them with a color set to color or multiply or whatever. That's great if your looking for an old-time colorized style. We want realism.
Thanks again.

You really put up a challenge Rey!.. let's see who can meet it"

OK. Here. Now you can pick a girl.

had a quick try at it

help your self to the hot chick

The number of layers that was used is irrelevent. What counts is the end result. This is by far the best colorization that I have Ever seen. It is actually a perfect type of shot for colorizing. There are not too many details to deal with and can produce the most natural results. Hair is one of the hardest elements to colorize and you did an absolutely outstanding job. Everything in the image looks natural and that is something in itself.

When I do colorizations I always do them in LAB color mode because of it's ability to hold color and luminance as separate entities. I usually paint on transparent layers and then use the transparency as masks for later modifying the luminance of the image once I am satisfied with the color. I use apply image and calculations to further manipulate the luminance. How ever you chose to do your own work on this image, It is truely a credit to your vison and abilities.

Cheers
Jerry

This is a before and after of the last colorization that I did (about 1.5 years ago). It is more of a painting then it is a colorization, but the same techniques are used. The original image and the colorized version started as 11" x 14" at 400ppi The painting took me about 6 hours to complete and I had a total of 8 layers but there were many channel blending techniques that I used that can not be performed on layers.

Original

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v460/jerry717/Samurai_bw.jpg

Painted

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v460/jerry717/Samurai_clr.jpg

The techniques that I used are essentially the same as described above in my first post.

Jerry

This is my first attempt at colorizing. I had a real headache with the girl on the left. I still didn't get her skin color anywhere near right.

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WCgems - that is a nice red that you chose for the little "X".

It is true that I am a rank amateur at this kind of work. But I will go with the theory that nothing beats a failure, but a try, and post this effort. Since I am not a sophisticated colorizer, my methods were primitive and included using the pen tool to isolate areas to color. I also used hue/saturation adjustments to get the color I wanted and I painted in colors where necessary.
I am comfortable accepting advice and suggestions.
Thanks

7:10PM Arizona time. I just noted a horrible orange cast on the darker girl's forehead.
I didn't see it on the monitor, when I looked at it this afternoon. So I did my best to correct that flaw and some other color issues that I saw on this observation.

thanks jerry for those tips from a master!
wcgems, try and give them a more natural skin color. the one on the left seems affected by severe liver problems

btw, how did i do? anyone?

Supa,
I thought your colorization was terrific. It looked very natural and the red blouse was a great match for the skin color and contrast.
Like you, I appreciate Reyrey and his skill and have always been grateful for jerry's insight and tips. And thanks to Splodge for the site referral. It shows a lot of good before and afters.