Project 3
In this unit, the focus is on retouching and colorizing this black and white image.
I have used the image supplied for the class and colorized the roses as you can see here:
To do this, the first step involves making tonal adjustments to the entire image so that shadows and highlights are acceptable. It is recommended not to make these adjustments after colorizing because, using the Curve feature, it will make adjustments to the entire image and that might not be what is desired. After that, I worked with a variety of tools.
First, I was thinking I would just use the lasso tool to outline the roses and make color adjustments. However, a rose is a little more complicated because of its shape. Ultimately, I simply picked an initial red color and brushed on the color, leaving the darker areas and tips of the petals as is. I then picked a darker red to simulate the shaded petal areas. I also
picked a yellow to highlight the petal's edges on each rose (whether this is artistic or not could be up for debate).
An unsteady hand and a rough desk surface occasionally stopping my mouse from moving made for some "overspray", very much like what happens with a spray can of paint when one gets too close to an edge somewhere. So, the result was that I had some of the new colors from the petals on the leaves and stems that I intended to leave black and white. For this, the clone tool works pretty well. I was able to sample adjacent areas and recolor the areas the way they should be. I also, found it easier to reduce the brush size so I could work with a little smaller detail.
Although I am not sure how much I really like it, I chose a leaf brush that randomly places leaves within the proximity of the brush cursor whenever clicked to create a sort of border all around the image. I guess I like it better than a hard border because it seems a little more natural, or at least contextual.