Tweet Color from Black-and-White: colorized photos

Martie, Bob,

Never saw this card before. Got any others. Must be more Lobbies for DANCING MOTHERS. Yeah Clara looks like Moticia Adams with that pale gray Skin-tone. Made some slight adjustments too. Have to send this to Jorge and see if he can remove the site logo or not?

Here is a new one I worked on last weekend. Clara with Harrison Ford.




"Naughty, Naughty!"

Here a few color transfers I've been working on. Please give me some feedback because I'm considering starting a blog (basically a place for me to post movie reviews and other misc. stuff), and these are a few that I'm considering using for the inaugural post.


Tennis anyone? Norma Shearer in the sadly lost "The Waning Sex"


Stan and Ollie calling out for Baron Munchausen in "Hollywood Party"


Any vacancies at the "Keystone Hotel"?

Little Caesar,

Great stuff, but why are those Tennis Balls Green? Stan and Ollie look great, though it appears everyone behind them are still Black and White? Can't quite identify Everyone in The Keystone Hotel. Some unique choices.

What does anyone know about this Lost Serial from 1921? I have 4 cards for it.



Here is a Incredible Lobby-card. Apparently the first major production about Charles Lindbergh's historic Trans-Atlantic flight from New York to Paris. Released in 1928

Little Caesar,

Great stuff, but why are those Tennis Balls Green? Stan and Ollie look great, though it appears everyone behind them are still Black and White? Can't quite identify Everyone in The Keystone Hotel. Some unique choices.

Aren't tennis balls supposed to be green? All of the ones I've seen my dog chewing on are green at least.
I chose not to colorize everyone and everything behind Stan and Ollie because of how fuzzy it all is. Also, I remembered what Bob did with that Barrymore "General Crack" photo and wanted to see how that would work here. As for the Keystone Hotel, from left to right we have Ben Turpin, Chester Conklin, Marie Prevost, Hank Mann, and Ford Sterling.

Just put the finishing touches on this still from "Star of Midnight," a fairly good Thin Man-like mystery with William Powell and Ginger Rogers.

Little Caesar,

I really like your images, you've come a long way in a short time. Coloring the people behind L&H is a judgment call. I would add flesh tone especially to the fellow on the right but that's all. I would leave the clothing as is. I'd leave Stan's eyes alone because they're too small and the blue makes them stand out unnaturally. When eyes are so prominent that to leave them alone would look unnatural, I use a light blue followed by a layer of flesh tone. The mixture makes the eyes look relatively natural - see the W.C. Fields photo on the previous page here that I retouched as an example. Where the eyes are dark, I use a brown as the base. The recent Colleen Moore photos posted here may be historically accurate with one eye blue and the other brown, but it looks weird and distracting. I'd opt for the same color for both eyes and chalk it up to artistic license.

The photo from KEYSTONE HOTEL is excellent (is that really Marie Prevost?) but I would tone the color intensity down a notch. As for Norma Shearer's balls, uh, tennis balls, I'd use more artistic license and say the green was specially made just for her!

You're clearly ready for prime time so I encourage you to post your work on your own blog. I've been very happy with Wordpress if you're looking for a recommendation. The only favor I'd ask is just don't call your blog Old Hollywood in Color. Thanks.

Just put the finishing touches on this still from "Star of Midnight," a fairly good Thin Man-like mystery with William Powell and Ginger Rogers.

Another fine job, Little Caesar, with some judgment calls. I like to use am ambiant brown over the entire image because it gives it a genuine color photography look (sometimes). Without it, images tend to look a bit like comic book color and the ambiant brown levels it out. In my Photoshop, it is labeled under the function, "Correct skin tones."

After applying the brown, I toned down the color intensity a bit. This is really an A/B comparison but what do you think?

LC,

I thought Tennis Balls were a light Yellow or a Tanned White? But I haven't seen any in a long time. I tried to adjust the ones that Norma is holding there, and they just look like Green Apples now. So I don't get it?

Four Lobby's for a Syd Chaplin feature HER TEMPORARY HUSBAND from 1923. I just realized that Syd was making features regularly before Charlie? That seems really strange. This one looks like a hoot! That appears to be Owen Moore, but I'm not sure who the leading lady is?

Just put the finishing touches on this still from "Star of Midnight," a fairly good Thin Man-like mystery with William Powell and Ginger Rogers.

Another fine job, Little Caesar, with some judgment calls. I like to use am ambiant brown over the entire image because it gives it a genuine color photography look (sometimes). Without it, images tend to look a bit like comic book color and the ambiant brown levels it out. In my Photoshop, it is labeled under the function, "Correct skin tones."

After applying the brown, I toned down the color intensity a bit. This is really an A/B comparison but what do you think?

They both look interesting, and I can't really say that one is better than the other. To my eyes, my version looks a little sharper, and yours looks softer but with warmer colors. Thanks for the suggestions. I can't say that any proposed blog will be up by tomorrow (or even by next month), but I will consider everything you said.

LC,

The William Powell-Ginger Rogers looks great.

Three Lobby's with Viola Dana from a 1920 release.

LC,

I thought Tennis Balls were a light Yellow or white? But I haven't seen any in a long time. I tried to adjust the ones that Norma is holding there, and they just look like Green Apples now. So I don't get it?

Ok - let's compromise and say that they're yellowish-green.
Actually, I was planning to leave the balls uncolored, but I then figured that somebody would chime in, "Don't you know that tennis balls are green?" It's a catch-22.
Here's an earlier version of the Norma still. The only differences between the "final" version posted earlier and this are the uncolored head cap, the uncolored tennis balls, and the lack of color tweeking. What do you think of this version? At least Norma isn't playing tennis with granny smith apples anymore.

Bob,
Here is an earlier version of the Keystone Hotel still. The other version posted earlier was inspired by the sometimes loud and garish colors seen in some of the early three-strip Technicolor Warner Bros. shorts. Hence, I was giving my interpretation of how Keystone Hotel may have looked if Warner Bros. filmed it in color. Yes, that is supposed to be Marie Prevost. She was identified as such by the attached press snipe.

Caesar,

I'm sure my STAR OF MIDNIGHT photo is less sharp because I copied it from here to my C drive, opened it in Photoshop, saved it back to my C drive then copied it to Photobucket to post here. I'm sure the dpi rate took some losses through all that. At any rate, my purpose was to suggest nuances you can give a color transfer. If your goal is to simulate the vivid colors of lobby cards (which was my initial inspiration) than you're doing just fine. These days I'm trying to imitate genuine color photos from the Kodachrome era - vivid w/o that lobby card type of saturation.

Here's one I just did. The background on the right was problematic but I'm pleased with Rudy:


BLOOD AND SAND (1922)

A couple of things troubled me with the Norma image. It had a washed out quality and the lower part of Norma got lost in the tennis court. How's this?

[quote="Gagman 66"]

What does anyone know about this Lost Serial from 1921? I have 4 cards for it.



According to IMDb, "Miracles Of The Jungle" has one major distinction: this production is the last movie made by Selig Polyscope Company. Selig Polyscope, in business since 1896, made 2,172 movies, according to IMDb. Selig, which made over a hundred movies a year in the teens until 1917, made only 10 movies between 1918 and 1921. Understandable, Selig filed for bankruptcy in 1918. Before completely folding, Selig concentrated on serials making use of "The Lost City" (1920) sets and the animals in the Selig Zoo.

According to a posting in IMDb for "The Lost City," this serial was a 1920 Warner Bros. production. The Silent Era website indicates that in 1920 Warner Bros. distributed Selig productions on a States Rights basis. You know, when I see the title "Miracles Of The Jungle," I can only think, was that the title of a video arcade game.

Caesar,

I'm sure my STAR OF MIDNIGHT photo is less sharp because I copied it from here to my C drive, opened it in Photoshop, saved it back to my C drive then copied it to Photobucket to post here. I'm sure the dpi rate took some losses through all that. At any rate, my purpose was to suggest nuances you can give a color transfer. If your goal is to simulate the vivid colors of lobby cards (which was my initial inspiration) than you're doing just fine. These days I'm trying to imitate genuine color photos from the Kodachrome era - vivid w/o that lobby card type of saturation.

Here's one I just did. The background on the right was problematic but I'm pleased with Rudy:


BLOOD AND SAND (1922)

A couple of things troubled me with the Norma image. It had a washed out quality and the lower part of Norma got lost in the tennis court. How's this?

I actually think that in some respects the softer look on the Star of Midnight photo enhances it. As for the Norma image, the original photo is not in very good condition. The image is washed-out and somewhat faded. I only spent a dollar on it on ebay so I can't exactly complain.

That Powell-Rogers pic is excellent, or as I like to say, lekker.
Here is a colorization I did of Jean Harlow.


Now for Marion Davies.


And one of Clara.

I'm not too happy with how the eye make-up turned out on this one, though.

Martie,

I preferred Harlow prior to their plucking her brows. Except for occasionally the brows, I rarely touch the eye make-up anymore. I was ripped heavily for having to heavy of a Blue or Brown eye shadow in the past, so now I just ignore it. That Marion photo looks like she got up on the wrong side of the bed there. I found some devastating simply photos of actresses in THE TATTLER! Wow! wait until I get to some of these posted here. You'll Flip!

THE MATING CALL on TCM tonight! A great movie if you haven't seen it before, and even if you have. Thomas Meighan, Evelyn Brent. Renee Adoree, and the other gal is cute too. Here are a whopping 6 Lobby-cards. They are not all in the best shape. I wonder if this is the complete series or if there were others?

Little Caesar, Bob,

My take on the Norma Shearer still. The Tennis Balls still look like Green Apples though. This seems a little more vibrant. I tried to change the shade of the folliage in the background, but it does not seem any different.

Thanks for the feedback/constructive criticism. I particularly like the improvements to the Norma Shearer photo. Here are two more for your consideration:


Does anyone know the significance of a photo having a linen backing? I'm asking because this photo has one.


This photo I found very surprising because of how visible Harold's glove is. This is the first time that I can think of that I have actually been able to clearly tell that Harold is wearing a glove on his right hand..

Caesar,

As far as I'm concerned, both images are nigh well perfect. The faces on GENERAL seem "blasted out" so I fiddled with the contrast/brightness to bring out some of the facial features. That worked but I'm not happy with the flesh tone now, but the point is you can bring out features as you apply the color process.



The Harold Lloyd is terrific. Yes, the glove is noticeable but only if you know that he wore it. Great work!

Bob, LC,

My take on the Buster-Marion Mack still from THE GENERAL. I added a little hint of stray flowers to the foliage in the background. Tried to sharpen it up a bit. See what you think?

Gagman and Bob,
I like the improvements and feedback on Buster photo. I have a few more photos from Movie Crazy (both from the original release and mid-1940s reissue) that I'll try to work on.

LC,

Yeah I'll interested to see the other Harold's. That Constance Cummings was such a gorgeous woman.


Here is a 1922 photo of Gloria Swanson from THE TATTLER. Magazine. I guess I should not have put The Giant Logo on this pic. It is hard to work with the grainy newsprint.

When I was a kid (the '50s) all the tennis balls I saw were off-white/grey.
It was a shock when the yellow-green balls arrived.
I think that tennis balls in the older pictures should be white, or dirty white.

Here is some more info:

http://www.ehow.com/video_4974489_what- ... -ball.html

Rick

This is true. When I started playing tennis, the balls were white, but quickly changed over to "optic yellow", and that was in the early '70s.

I thought the Tennis Balls were White or a Tan Color. Thanks. Got a comment on another forum that Norma must have had fairly good sized hands to handle both of those Balls like that at the same time!

Here are a couple Lobby's for WAY DOWN EAST. If your not happy with the Skin-tone, I haven't changed anything.

I gladly stand corrected on Norma's tennis balls.
Here's another Movie Crazy photo. I'm not entirely happy with it. I had some problems with Constance's skin tones. Anyway, consider it a work in progress.

LC,

Looks good. Although Harold's suit and tie both appear to be green on my monitor? Is that what you wanted? Don't see anything wrong at first glance with Constance skin-tone.

LC,

Looks good. Although Harold's suit and tie both appear to be green on my monitor? Is that what you wanted? Don't see anything wrong at first glance with Constance skin-tone.

Green? That's not what I'm seeing on my monitor. The suit is supposed to be grey and the tie is dark blue.