Hand colouring photos

Hand-colouring has been used to add colour since the invention of photography. Used primarily to add colour to black and white formal portraits, hand-colouring for this purpose went into a serious decline in the 1950's caused by the emergence of colour photography in the same year.

The art form survived, however, re-emerging in the 1960's. It soon became part of the mainstream advertising and fashion photography of the time when it was rediscovered by a new generation of photographers, primarily in the United States.

Hand colouring also became a way of restoring faded or damaged photos, caused by many things like water, sunlight, air and neglect, bringing the colours back to life.

This technique can also bring vibrancy to dull, bleak images that require a bit of colour to brighten them up.

Painting Colour Onto Black And White Images

For this task we were asked to take a head to toe, portrait of each other or someone random. We then had to change the image into black and white and print it off.

We were then left to paint to our hearts content, adding colour to the image. Once the painting had dried we scanned the image into the macs.

I feel this is quite a good way of enhancing certain aspect of the image to hide blemishes. For example, my model had a bright green lanyard on, which i hadn't noticed until I uploaded my image onto the mac. I painted pieces around the lanyard, in bright colours, which has as a result almost made the lanyard invisible to the eye as the bright colours of the paint take your eye away from the spot it is.

Also outlining the neck of her top, overlapping the lanyard, has also made it appear as though she wasn't wearing it.