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Here's a different problem. usually I deal with old black and white photos that have been damaged, but here's one that's not damaged, but has lost colour. The red has been leached out by the sun.
I had a look in Deke's Photoshop Bible, and he has some tips using Colour Mixer. Which I tried, but have, as yet, not produced a satisfactory result.
So here's the picture of our John when he was small (he's over 30 now).
Questions: can we get the colour back and the balance right, and if so, how?
Well, im sorry to say but theres not much color in this picture to restore. You could try colorizing it http://www.photoshopgurus.info/forum...pic.php?t=3195 using the tips and links in this forum, or you can just turn it to b&w and give it more contrast using curves. Or you could colorize it via a hue/saturation adjustment layer...no matter what you do, I think theres no way to get any color out of this photo that wont look mono or duotone...I would love for someone in the mod squad or anyone else to prove me wrong...
Hi Shaun, I had a quick go at this. It should allow you to take it into the colorizing stage.
Image below shows stages, sample points and final image.
1. Duplicate the layer and set blending mode to multiply.
2. Create a Curves Adjustment layer. Use the eyedroppers to set the shadow, mid and high points. I used the eye, jumper and side of forehead, but you could experiment with other points.
Take merged snapshot, done.
You could adjust the contrast with levels for finer control, I just did it as above for speed.
If you want to colorize it further, the lips are a bit yellow, I'd suggest a couple of Hue & Saturation layers, set to colorize and then paint in through the masks.
It shouldn't take too much to make this reasonable.
I had a quick go at it too... basic leveling of general tones, a few colour layers added, some cloning repairs, etc...
Skin tone is a bit off though, i know. Didn't have the time to really zero in on it. And there's visible Jpg compression anomolies in this example too.
There was a tutorial about coloring,wich I didn`t try:
1. Copy the original and set the mode to Multiply 50%
2.create a new layer above B&W , on this layer create some flat colors
3. When finised coloring change bland mode to Color
4. duplicate the color layer put it on the top of all layers and change the blandig mode to Multiply 50%
This one is simply way,but may be you can use it too.
Here's something I came up with. I threw in a curves and a levels adjustment layer. Painted on another layer but kept the layer on Hue rather than Color. Used color dodge on the parts of the eyes. Otherwise the same technique as posted above.
Here`s another shot at it.
Duplicated the original, desaturated, convert to CMYK, select each color area and add a clipped curves layer, play with eack channel one at a time.
(skin color is not quite right, but you get the idea)
I basically took R.A.'s approach to gain contrast & detail, then desaturated the picture and colorized it. I enjoyed the challenge for 'practice' purposes as it's a technique that I've been working on lately.
Putting the colour back ... 
Linear Mode
