tinting B&W photos?

Voyager · Oct 12, 2010

I've tried high quality watercolors to provide a wash/tint to portions of the image (on Ilford IV paper/Ilford chemicals), and though it colors nicely and gives the opaque look I want, there remains a smear on the photo looking like maybe the gelatin or ? has dissolved and puddled...any thoughts?

winger · Oct 12, 2010

Do you have a link to what you want as a look? I've used Marshall's photo oils and they do what I look for, but it's not opaque. There are some on my webpage and possibly one or two in my gallery here.

Voyager · Oct 13, 2010

Bethe...thank you for responding...I just looked up the word "opaque", and I've apparently used the wrong word. I don't have a link to what I'm after--it's in my head, but the flowers on your site are more like it; a light touch with detail/tones showing through (that's why my first attempt was with thinned watercolors). I looked up the Marshall's you mentioned, and that could be the answer--I'll order a couple of tubes to try out...Vincent

Jesper · Oct 13, 2010

I use photo editing colours from Schmincke applied with airbrush (a lot of masking but well worth the trouble).
Any paint applied with a brush seems to leave traces of the brush (I am no master with brushes).

Ian Grant · Oct 13, 2010

If you use Water colours or Oil paints you are leaving the paint on the surface of the emulsion.

If you were to see original Bob Carlos Clarke prints (from Dark Summer etc) the colour is in the gelatin of the emulsion so the hand colouring (tinting) looks like a colour print. This is a technique I used a lot in the 70's & 80's, I used Photocolor Photo dyes which were designed for retouching and hand colouring as well as an arsenal of bleaches, toners, colour couplers etc.

Ian

dwross · Oct 13, 2010

I second the use of photo dyes. I use Marshall's 'Photo Retouch Colors'. With a small enough brush, no detail too fine to capture, and the underlying photo doesn't disappear. With dilution, you can wash large areas in color. Best of all, the dyes are easily mixable. You can make any custom palette you want.

http://www.dwrphotos.com/Support/About.Art.htm

Project Vedos · Oct 14, 2010

We have done hand coloring for years with Dylon dyes... wide variety of colors and goes perfectly into the emulsion, glossy or matt...

Google "dylon fabric dye", or see: Dead Link Removed

-Jalo

Ian Grant · Oct 14, 2010

Yes, I've used Dylon dyes as well, they work perfectly, but a good colour retouching kit has a better balance of colours although they are much harder to get hold of these days.

Ian

MarvinOne · Nov 15, 2010

I'm very interested in handcoloring and am glad you all had this thread going! I'm VERY new to the darkroom in general, so here's a newbie question...after looking at some of your websites/links, do you have to use fiber based paper? Or is there a way to color on resin coated? I've not used fiber based but have been told it's a pain to dry. Thanks!

winger · Nov 15, 2010

MarvinOne said:
I'm very interested in handcoloring and am glad you all had this thread going! I'm VERY new to the darkroom in general, so here's a newbie question...after looking at some of your websites/links, do you have to use fiber based paper? Or is there a way to color on resin coated? I've not used fiber based but have been told it's a pain to dry. Thanks!

RC will work, but it needs to be matte finish - the oils glide off the glossy. Overall, fiber is more of a pain to work with, but gives a nicer result when it's done right.

Ian Grant · Nov 15, 2010

Glossy RC papers are ideal for hand tinting etc with retouching dyes, Here's my take on it.

Ian

tinting B&W photos?

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