Tweet Color from Black-and-White: colorized photos

I just finished work on The Thin Man photo.


Also, here's a Clara Bow photo I just completed.

LC, excellent on both. I played around with the contrast and brightness, and added a bit of ambiant brown to the THIN MAN photo.

LC, Bob,

Great stuff guys.

A few pics for Lillian Gish Day on TCM. Which is today.

Gagman, The third and fourth image didn't come through, at least for me. But I like the two I can see - delicate colors for a delicate persona.

Consider the following color transfer a preview of my first blog post "A Defense of Professor Beware." I've always been quite fond of this film, but aside from a few comments I've seen here on Nitrateville, most comments I've seen of this film have been quite dismissive. So, I thought that I would try to counter that a bit with a bit of positive press about the movie. I have several stills and the original press book (the only press book I have in my film collection btw) plus my copy of the film (which I recorded off of AMC some years ago - I had to have been the nerdiest 12 year old around then) - so I should have ample material. It will still be a little while before it is posted since I need to get several more color transfers done. In the mean time, enjoy this still which shows a scene deleted from the movie. Perhaps the Hays Office objected to Phyllis Welch's attire (you won't see me objecting though ).


Also, here is a redo (with a higher resolution scan) of a Mary Philbin still that I posted here several months ago.

LC,

I like PROFESSOR BEWARE too, and agree that it has been unfairly judged over the years. Great pic!

Here is some new stuff. Not real happy with most of these. Especially the Dolores. The Newsprint is hard to work on and achieve decent looking results sometimes.




Colleen in Joyous Mood 1923 Portrait



Renee Adoree- "Song Of My Heart" 1923 Portrait




Lois Wilson in Costume for THE COVERED WAGON

Note: Pauline Starke was chosen by readers of Motion Picture Classic as one of the Top 6 Most beautiful female Stars in Hollywood. Was there a complete top 10? Where did she rank? Number 6? Who made the top 5 list in 1923? Don't know because this was in a previous issue, but is alluded to in the one I got this shot from.



Pauline 1923 Portrait



Pauline Stark in "LOVES BLINDNESS" (1926)




Dolores Costello in costume for The Mannequin (1926)

Everybody,

Another rare Colleen Moore photo from THE WILD ONE! Just Kidding.



"Our Favorite Dock Worker"

Everybody,

Another rare Colleen Moore photo from THE WILD ONE! Just Kidding.



"Our Favorite Dock Worker"

I think I know how I'm gonna colorize this one...

Three Moore stills, a Laura La Plante, and an Esther Ralston.



Colleen Moore and Lloyd Hughes in SALLY (1925)




"The New Maid"- from "OH KAY!" (1928)




"Moore To The Point"




Doing The La Plante Shuffle- From THE MIDNIGHT SUN (1926)




Esther Ralston- "Passionate Perfume"

Say, these are nice! Especially the Moore to the Point one. These are all new to me, never seen any of them before. Do you have a nice, big Colleen for me to colorize, by the way? I just finished a Negri.

Martie,

I'll look around. Have some really good Jacqueline Logan photos that need work. Other Esther's etc.

Here is the first Colleen I found that you might have fun with. It's kind of soft. Will look for something sharper. Tryed to re-size the portrait. Unfortunately, just distorted the dimensions.

Bob, Martie, LC, Etc,



Madge Bellamy- "Pretty Young Thing"




Billie Dove- "The Cowgirl Was Meant For Kissing"




Mary Brian- "Sweethearts Are For Real!"




"Running Board Colleen"


Everyone,

OK, does anyone know who this is? My first thought was a very young June Marlowe. Then I got to thinking that it looks allot like Marian Nixon did in RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE?



"Cute As The Dickens!"

Everyone,

OK, does anyone know who this is? ...I got to thinking that it looks a lot like Marian Nixon did in RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE?

Not sure who, but I don't think it's Marian Nixon.
I hope someone can tell us.

Is there a date underneath that signature that appears to say 1907? Looks like maybe an NY also. Doesn't seem right. My immediate reaction was it wasn't Marian Nixon, but I can't be sure.

(Last Haddock reference, I promise )

Maybe she's actually Captain Haddock's long lost cousin? Hence my color choices.


Here's that Negri I promised.


And this is Billie Dove.

Martie,

Your Billie Dove looks amazingly like mine. Done about a month ago.

Gagman,

I will admit, the resemblance is rather striking.

By the way, I finished that Colleen portrait you posted. I have another Colleen in the works.

Martie,

The Colleen looks similar to mine as well. But I have a blue background outside the frame. Have we figured out who "Cute As The Dickens" is yet? Also Patsy Ruth Miller, morphed back into Madge Bellamy.

Here is a tiny image of Colleen I worked on. Tried to increase the size, but all it did was stretch the perspective out of whack.



Three photos of Pola Negri. These were not done by me. Again, don't know why they are more the size of Thumbnails? There must be larger versions someplace?

At the risk of opening a can of worms here's some crops of Clara's eyes. Not exactly dark brown, let's just say they were agate brown.

[Danny Burk]

Jeff - which program are you using - Photoshop or something else? You should be able to increase size without changing aspect ratio, whether manually or automatically.

If you're in Photoshop, go to Image/Image Size; then make sure that "Constrain Proportions" is checked. As long as the latter is done, you can change one dimension as you wish and the other will automatically increase by the correct amount.

If you're using another program, I'm probably not familiar with it, but I may be able to help if you tell me the options that you have for increasing size. If you have to do it manually, just increase width and height by the same proportion: for example, if you presently have width of 300 pixels and height of 400 pixels, you can (for example) change them to 600 and 800 respectively, doubling the image width and height, yet keeping the proper aspect ratio.

Danny,

Well, generally I use Picture It to either increase or decrease the size of a Photo. With some photos such as these are, that just doesn't work well. Distorts the image instead. Must admit I don't know how to re-size with Photoshop. Thanks for explaining that to me, and I will try to figure it out.

Don't remember if I posted this here before or not? I posted it on a couple other boards though. The Bessie Love is just to grainy. And her hair is very dark as well. Looks more like a painting than a photo.



Strongheart And Lady Julie

LC,

Can you post the original B/W image?

Gagman,

Can you post the original B/W of these images too?

Martie,

Well, here is one of them. I'll keep looking for the others. Though really i have found many that are even better.

Martie,

Well, here is one of them. I'll keep looking for the others. Though really i have found many that are even better.

Ooh, that right there is very lovely. Never seen it before. The camera really loved her face, didn't it? Yet more proof her eyes weren't quite so dark, as well.
That line about the "many that are even better" was too tempting, can you post a sample when you get a chance?

Martie,

Here are three really nice ones. Haven't worked on either. But I think I have others for a color patten in the same costumes. Need to look them up. This first shot almost seems like a Swanson parody. This probably will start a new page, and nothing will be a Color Transfer as Bob likes to refer to them.

Martie,

Here are three really nice ones. Haven't worked on either. But I think I have others for a color patten in the same costumes. Need to look them up. This first shot almost seems like a Swanson parody. This probably will start a new page, and nothing will be a Color Transfer as Bob likes to refer to them.

All three, save for the first one, are new to me. I'm quite interested in what else you have. I'm worried about possibly spamming this thread with incessant Clarequesting (punny), so one more sample, mayhaps?

Martie,

Try this. I 'm sure everyone will want to give the image a go.

The image isn't new to me, but who cares - Chester Conklin and Clara Bow together makes a mighty fine image! I'll definitely give this image a go.

Lillian Gish


Theda Bara