All the images on these particular pages started out as black and white pictures. I discovered this wonderful way to bring new life to them whilst dabbling with Photoshop one day.

In case you are not familiar with Photoshop, it is recognised by most in the image editing business as being THE leading software of it's type. Unfortunately it is also rather expensive, and somewhat time consuming to learn. Nonetheless it is truly amazing what can be achieved with it, and whilst I still have plenty to learn, I'm constantly finding new ways to create with it. If you are at all interested in working on computer still images, and can afford the cost, there really is no competition!

Just to give you a brief idea of how I add colour to an original B&W picture, this is basically what is involved. First of all I clean up the original black and white picture by cloning over any unwanted scratches etc., remove excess grain, and sharpen the image if required. Next I make "selections" from the different coloured parts of the image, such as skin, costume, hair, lips, teeth, eyes etc., and save these selections for later. I then sample the colours I require from a suitable colour photo (same costume etc.). These sampled colours are then applied in a special way in Photoshop, to the selections saved earlier, so that the textures and shadows of the original B&W picture are not obliterated by the added colour. Simply applying colour in "normal mode" would produce solid colours, as in a cartoon!

Well I hope that made reasonable sense, and gave you some idea of just how long these things take to create! It really is great fun though, and if anyone would like any tips on colourizing, or other image editing techniques, just drop me a line!