Colorization++ - Potatoe's

[GbyP]

Yes.

There is no one way of colorizing. In theory, gradient maps with Overlay blending mode pick up the subtle shading of the underlying source image so it supposedly makes the color more realistic. But other than the facial funnays you added to your pic, that looks fantastic - it looks like a color photo taken last week. So it's just a style preference more than anything else.

Here are links to before/after pics I did on the old site:
Before: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa318/kjd03842/ecidiggrayscale.jpg">http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa31 ... yscale.jpg</a><!-- m -->
After: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://snk.smugmug.com/Squirrelopolis/Squirrel-Challenges/ecidiggrayscale-color/365994827_mNgsf-XL.jpg">http://snk.smugmug.com/Squirrelopolis/S ... gsf-XL.jpg</a><!-- m -->
I did this using the technique described.

The trick is sampling a similar color photo and getting a good range - not-quite-the-darkest thru not-quite-the-lightest color range; you can also set a mid-tone to push the layer darker or lighter per artistic license.

What's nice about this method is that it is really easy to play with different color schemes - you don't like a blue dress, double click on that gradient map layer and change the color to a range of red colors or whatever.