Re-colouring Old Images

Several months ago I came across the most beautiful photo of my Grandparents.  There’s just so much spur-of-the-moment happiness in their expressions, which is really rare for a photo in the 50’s era I guess.  I decided with this one, that I would have a go at changing it from black & white back to colour.  This is the first time I’ve properly attempted this, and believe me – it’s taken HOURS to get it right.  There’s dozens of layers building levels of colour, light and shadow all together to get to this point.  The most challenging part is getting the skin tones right.  If I was completely honest, I think I still need a little practice getting the tones right.  It was especially difficult as my Grandmother’s skin is much paler than my Grandfather’s olive tones.  Yeah, they looked orange for a while.  There spray tans in the 50’s, right?

All in all, I’m really happy with how it’s turned out! And it wasn’t until I put the before and after shots side by side, that I realised just how much the re-coloured image has changed!

If you’ve got a special family photo at home, that you’d like to have me work on, get in touch pam@vividediting.com.au