"Hand Coloring Photographs" Facebook group

[pentaxuser]

It might be better to not attack the poor guy for inviting members here to a Facebook group. He wasn't asking you to sacrifice your firstborn....

@MarkL - look up Andrew Sanderson. He hand-colours his prints every now and then. Since he gives workshops on it, he may even join your group. He's on Facebook and Instagram.

Yes and the key question for us here should surely be be : Is there enough hand-colourers on Photrio who want to set up a group to make it viable for the OP to confine it to Photrio

Al I can recall is that someone called "edie," if I recall the name correctly, who mentioned handcolourig and submitted very good examples of his work but I haven't seen any examples from him of late

pentaxuser

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Back when my sister and I were kids around 1948, pros took and blushed pictures like this of family shots. (Edit: Just noticed they colored my sister's eyes blue which they were. Mine are brown)

 

[Don_ih]

the key question for us here should surely be be : Is there enough hand-colourers on Photrio who want to set up a group to make it viable for the OP to confine it to Photrio

My guess is there would be maybe 2 people on here who would actually break out the colours and post something and there would be 20 who chime in to say "I don't do this" and at least 5 who say "I don't see why anyone would do this" and maybe 15 who would comment "This is great". After a week, the thread would sink out of sight.

Facebook groups get enthusiasts, i.e., people who are currently enthusiastic about something and actively engaged in doing it or learning it. Those people drop in and out and are replaced by new people from the pool of 1 billion Facebook members.

However: the way Facebook structures comments makes it difficult to follow a conversation. You tend to have to work backwards all the time and continually expand the comments to see what people are saying. Facebook also more-or-less randomly chooses to hide comments from some users. Also, you can follow a group and new posts will not necessarily be shared to your "personal" feed. So, you will need to go looking. And you can't always "bump" an old post to the top of the group feed by leaving a comment (although sometimes you can). The newest is always emphasized on Facebook, while the oldest becomes harder and harder to find. There is no way to sort anything or organize anything. So it's ill-suited to anything beyond casual interest and conversation.

On here, you can occasionally get a more focused and sustained conversation.

 

[koraks]

Valid points @Don_ih .
"This is great", thanks.

 

[Ian Grant]

Ian, wow this work is incredible. And what you have done in your post is quite remarkable and very cool. I looked into the book you recommended (PAINTED LADIES, The art of hand-colouring in photography) and the reviews seem to say that there isn't much in terms of instruction but there are a lot of great artist samples. I just ordered a used paperback version.

I think in the case of "Painted Ladies" technique was way less important than the ideas and end results. You can approach hand colouring in different ways.

Personally, I preferred using toners and dyes, particularly as they left no visible trace on the paper surface. Initially when toning or adding colour dyes selectively to areas of a print I tried using masking fluid, but actually found it easy to work freehand with a variety of fine paint brushes. I would test with saved test strips & scrap prints, and had a variety of toners on the shelf. These included a standard Sulphide Sepia toner, Ilford IT-1, a Thiourea variable toner, IT-4 Gold toner, and alternative bleaches. A Ferricyanide Chloride re-halogenating bleach gives much warmer Sepia tones than on with Bromide, Iodide differs as well. Agfa (Orwo) Rezeptes listed 4 bleaches and then 4 toners for Sepia toning, so you had multiple permutations.

When I used Dye couplers I mixed my own, along with a simple colour developer which was applied by a small paint brush. There were formulae in the mid 1960s BJP Annual, this would have been 1985/6 as I photocopied the page from a girlfriend's father's Annual. Years later I have Annuals themselves.

It's something almost obsessional that you can really get absorbed in. I should have added I used Phototechnology Colour retouching dyes

Ian

 

[MattKing]

All of Don's points highlight how much potential value there might be in some sort of coordination between the two resources.
Photrio is accessible to the world.
It's just too bad that a private Facebook group is, well, on Facebook.

 

[Dan Dozer]

So - are these the sort of images you are interested in. Hand colored with Fotospeed Fotodyes. Twin Dragons silver print was toned with Thiourea toner first.

 

[Dan Dozer]

Two more - hand colored with Prismacolor pencils.

 

[Ian Grant]

Excellent Dan.

Ian

 

[axestrata]

This is a fantastic collection showcasing this art and its potential. However, I do agree with those on the point of having no interest in joining FB groups and the like.