I’ve spent a good part of my professional life hand-tinting photographs with a variety of paints, dyes, pastels, Photoshop etc. (There’s 30 years I won’t get back.) I have a youtube channel where I’ve posted three handtinting how-to videos. Click here for a link to the first How-to Handtinting with Oils 101. The second video is specifically about tinting photo canvases with Marshal oils. At the end I include a time lapse portion, tinting a large canvas of a dead great white shark – guts and all – for a client to hang in a seafood / espresso shop down at the docks. (I swear, only in Tokeland, man.) Click here for that second video. The third video explains how to use photo pencils. It also gives a great tip on what to use in place of the long discontinued PM Solution. Click here for that third video.
Here are some samples of photos I’ve colorized by various means:
Click on any image for a larger view:
Rocket Camera photo. Fiber base silver print. Hand colored with photo oils.
Fiber base silver print. Hand tinted with photo oils.
Infrared image. Hand tinted negative with dyes.
This is a Pintoid (created using a pinhole camera made from an Altoids container). It is tinted using photo dyes.
This is a Pintoid (created using a pinhole camera made from an Altoids container). It is tinted using photo dyes.
This is a Pintoid (created using a pinhole camera made from an Altoids container). It is tinted using photo dyes.
Infrared photo, fiber base silver print. Photo oils.
Infrared image. Hand tinted negative with dyes.
Infrared image. Fiber base silver print. Hand colored with pastels.
Fiber base silver print, hand colored with oils.
Infrared photo, fiber base silver print. Photo oils.
This isn’t general knowledge, but I used to handtint black and white photos for magazine covers. It was a lot of fun. I recently came across some of the covers and thought I’d share.
This was the very first cover I tinted.
Ha! Fun times.
The black and white original.
The tinted image.
Imagine my chagrin upon receiving this.
But I made it through! I persevered! I tinted every single detail in this image. AND .. I did it with Photoshop. I ain’t no techinal dummy when it comes to software. The client simply needed an electronic file. That’s a lot of layers there.
Another thing I do is restorations:
The original restored black and white. It was about 3″x5″.The final canvas print is 18″x24″ and hand tinted with oils.
My mom – circa 1932. This was from a little, tiny , torn b&w photo.
Well, there you have it. My dog hangs out in the studio and doesn’t seem to mind the smell of oil paints. He’s a good sport.
