I’m putting together a project that involves handcoloring some black and white photographs. I was wondering if anyone here had any experience with handcoloring, and has any helpful tips or resources they could share.
Anything would be helpful, what materials you might recommend (I have some, but am waiting on picking up some others until after I look around a bit more), any particular tips or information you might have, or even links to websites that have information.
I need to buy a printer to print copies of photos to do this with, so if anyone has recommendations on what kind of printer and what kind of paper would be suitable, that would be very helpful, also. I’m not rich, so moderately-priced stuff is what I’m looking for. It’s not for anything professional, but rather as a gift. (It’s not a Christmas Gift, so I’m not in a rush. I’m aiming for February/March.)
I’m not too sure, but I’m pretty sure hand-colouring photos is best done with ink on photographic paper printed the old-fashioned way. The inks just wouldn’t really work on printer paper. Do you still have the negatives? Try to get them printed if you can, or if you’ve just got photos/digital files you might be able to get a photo studio to duplicate them for you. Might be expensive, though.
Or you could recolour them on the computer, using Photoshop or similar software (the GIMP is free).
Or I’ve heard of people printing them with a laser printer (inkjet lines will run) and colouring them with alcohol-based markers like Copics (they must be alcohol-based!). You can probably print for cheap at your local library, but Copics are like $7.50 each. There are cheaper brands out there, but most (all?) of the cheap ranges aren’t large enough to deal well with lighter colours like skin tones.
Doing them digitally is probably easiest and cheapest.
I’m really, REALLY bad at doing them digitally. I’ve tried digital coloring, and I’m terribly inept at it.
I do have some of the necessary supplies. I have Prismacolor Professional Art Markers (slightly cheaper than Copics, but similar in quality, and alcohol-based), along with some specialized handcoloring markers.
I was trying to read on any information I could find, and I found somewhere that said matte finish photo paper would be decent to print on, but that might have been just one person’s opinion, so I was hoping to find some more info.
I can color on the original prints I have, I do have extra sets of a couple but not the negatives, so if I can’t find anything suitable maybe I can practice on printed ones and do the final copies on the actual photos.
Even doing them manually a bit and then touching them up digitally might work. I think I can manage touchups okay, just coloring the entire thing digitally doesn’t generally turn out well for me.
Oh yeah, the main thing I wasn’t sure about is whether printer ink on photo paper would run when you colour it. If it doesn’t you’d have an easy way to do it, though in my experience on other paper types it runs a little. You should just print one off and test it, though.
Oh and excuse my rather blah phrasing up there. “I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure”… heh.
I don’t have any useful info. In high school I did some hand tinting with pencils of some sort that turned out quite nicely. I took some photos of some old portraits of my grandparents, blew them up and tinted them; they looked pretty cool.
A few years ago I bought some kind of (horribly smelly but effective) photo-fix spray at a camera shop that gave regular glossy photo prints the “grit” to hold Prismacolor pencils.
I forget what it’s called, but if you call around to your local photo and/or art stores I’m sure you can find out. It was like ten bucks. If you already have the Prismacolors, you’re good to go.
Worked like a charm for me.
Just make sure you use it outdoors, or in a well-ventilated area.
