AGEOD Forums

Good job my friend. What program do you use to colorize the portraits?

Photoshop. Just use paintbrushes with a lot of transparency. Each time I do one, I figure out some other things to pay attention to...plus the fact that I can paint shadows myself and not just rely on what peeks through from the black and white.

packersfanmw87 wrote:Photoshop. Just use paintbrushes with a lot of transparency. Each time I do one, I figure out some other things to pay attention to...plus the fact that I can paint shadows myself and not just rely on what peeks through from the black and white.

Well that is good on you. I've just been trying to get new faces out there, I like to keep the grain from the original pictures and just highlight the colors to make the general colorized enough to look good in the game. Just cannot stand the generic generals and needed to add some new guys like Chamberlain and Armistead. I like your choices of general so far. Someone had requested CSA John Bowen who would be a great addition if you want to give that one a shot.

Oh yeah, anything is better than the generic clone generals. I'm just really getting into this colorizing thing, haha. Right now, I'm just going through the model folder and cross-checking with the portrait folder to see which "vanilla" game generals don't have colorized pictures. A lot of the more common guys have already been done. I might go back and do some better versions of previously done guys, but right now I'm going to stick with guys that haven't been done, so as not to step on anyone's toes. I'm currently working on Henry Prince with plans to do Orris Ferry, Alvin Hovey, and do a Joshua Chamberlain (I know there is a painting picture on here, but I'd like to get a colorized picture).

I'm glad you did up all those generals before, really made the game much more enjoyable. Now I can also contribute!

Here is my next work with a lot more knowledge and technique (I've learned a lot in three days). Brigadier General Henry Prince. I hope you like it! Now I just need to get better at making the transparency.

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Just pumping these guys out and loving it! Brigadier General Orris Sanford Ferry.

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Excellent. Are you using Photoshop? If so, what are your 'tricks' for colorizing the B&W pics ?

Yeah, that's excellent professional work.
A question too is: how muchy time it takes to? (I may do the same, with a month of work lol)
But he has the original color photos.

Thank you! You can see my earlier work from just two days ago and how much I've learned. I followed a tutorial to learn how to do it. I use Photoshop and it might take an hour or two. I haven't paid attention to the time. I've finished three today. My first attempt following the tutorial was Prince. Then I did Ferris and right now I'm just turning my Philip St. George Cooke into CW2 files. http://civilwartalk.com/threads/black-white-colorization-tutorial.78508/, this is the tutorial. This guy has a ton of great colorizations. Actually, the Gershom Mott one someone posted is his work. You can find some non-watermarked stuff floating around, but the stuff on his site Colorized History is watermarked and is available for purchase. Followed the tutorial this morning and whipped up Henry Prince. Then did Orris Ferry and finished Cooke a few hours ago.

I need to figure out how to monetize my professional ability, haha.

The tricks?

Many layers of reds, pinks, yellows, shadowy blues, pinks where the blood is closer to the surface, etc. I can't believe how it turns out!

Probably my last of offering of the day, Brigadier General Philip St. George Cooke (USA). Note, Henry Prince, Orris S Ferry, and Philip St. George Cooke are included in the vanilla models. I think Cooke is labelled as S.Cooke, though.

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Okay, for sure the last one today. It is nearly 1 AM. I'm addicted to this! Here by popular demand is Major General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (USA).

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That is very good work. I'm glad to hear you are addicted to it.

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I'm starting to feel like my colorization is Burnside to your Sherman.

If you can fix up this one for me I'd appreciate it, I can't get the colors right.

I don;t know how General Zook got in there, but feel free to do that one too he was my next specimen...

What are you using to colorize? Sure, no problem. I'm up for doing requests and fixing up previously done ones. I really like doing it. I spent the whole day yesterday doing those four and had no problem blowing my day off not playing any video games. This feels a little more "productive". I'll have to figure out the right gray for the CSA .

I use an online app that was suggested on this thread or another one. I don't have alot of time with my company and the kids but I have been trying to crank out some generals for all of us to replace the generics and import some generals that were missing. I have photoshop but I have not had the time to figure out the colorization process. Any pointers you can give would be great, I'd like to take the ones I have done previously to the next level. Preston Smith and JP Anderson did not come out as good as I would have liked, it would be interesting to start with them and see what we can do. I am excited that you have a similar passion for this that I do.[ATTACH]39764[/ATTACH]

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One of the more recent ones that I have done

Well if you have photoshop, I suggest giving that tutorial I linked to a try. Ruger looks pretty good. Just needs a little more saturation. That's where the reds and yellows underlying the skin really make a difference. I only followed the tutorial just yesterday and learned and did all those guys yesterday.

Right on I'll have a look.

Tribeticus asked for some help with this one. Here's my attempt. Only one picture of this guy and it is tiny and very poor quality. You can only do so much. Brigadier General Preston Smith (CSA).

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Based on a drawing. There are some pictures of Hovey, but very small low resolution, so I did this one first. Brigadier General Alvin P. Hovey (USA). Hovey is a model in the vanilla game.

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Good Job on Preston Smith. I agree it is a bad picture and tough to work with, but I like the results.

Thanks buddy.

Yeah, these more obscure guys are a little frustrating. I really like being able to grab a HUGE resolution picture from Library of Congress or something and those get the best results. Sadly, LoC doesn't have EVERY picture every taken, haha.

If you find something for CSA Humes, Henry McCulloch, O. Wilcox, J. Clark let me know. All I have found for Humes and McCulloch are horrible civilian pics (Barksdale also). Wilcox and Clark apparently did not exist lol...the search continues

Henry Eustace McCulloch was actually an interesting General, and brother of Ben McCulloch. Its a shame there are not more pics of him.

Yeah, sometimes these guys names are wrong, but the only Wilcox (who was a general or close to it) I can find for the CSA is Cadmus Wilcox. I did find John Bullock Clark Jr. So he is real. I'll keep an eye out. Confederate generals are even harder to track down decent quality pictures from the war.

Here's another one from the vanilla models. Brigadier General Thomas West Sherman (USA).

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Well done. Keep up the good job!

Here is a redo of Brigadier General Henry Walton Wessells (USA). He is another vanilla general, but goes by H.Wessels in the game.

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Here is Brevet Major General August Valentine Kautz (USA). Kautz served on the commission that investigated and judged the conspirators involved in assassinating Abraham Lincoln.

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Brilliant! Thats filled a lot of gaps.
I'm pretty sure O. Wilcox should be a Union general Orlando B. Wilcox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_B._Willcox#/media/File:Orlando_B._Willcox_-_Brady-Handy.jpg

You can also use GIMP if you dont have access to photoshop use this as a supplement to the site packersfanw87 mentions to help with the differences between the programs. http://emptyeasel.com/2008/10/24/how-to-digitally-color-a-black-white-photograph-in-gimp/

S!

Yeah, I used to use GIMP all the time. Actually I still do some things in GIMP (resizing the finished product for posting, adding the tag...because I'm not exactly sure how to do everything in Photoshop or Illustrator, yet!)

I've got a lot of other b&w photos of these more obscure generals waiting in their own folders to be colorized. Right now, I some colorization of more well-known guys like Joe Johnston, Beauregard, and Hood. Maybe they will be better than the game images.