IN LIVING COLOUR

Until about 50 years ago, everything captured through the lense of a camera was reproduced into black and white images. The light reflected by the myriad of colours in life were transformed into black, white and shades of grey. The single layer of black and white film was eventually replaced by triple-layered film that captured shades of the primary colours and combined them into the full colour spectrum. Everything that was on film could now be shown in realistic colours: from the family's summer vacation to the most elaborate motion pictures. Black and white film became the sole domain of artists and professional photographers such as Ansel Adams and Alfred Stieglitz. Even the classic motion pictures of the 1930's and 40's were eventually being offered in "colourized" formats.

In this lesson, you will add colour to black and white photographs to produce an effect similar to a colorized black and white movie. Using the Colourize function of Paint Shop Pro you will transform shades of grey to various colours. You will also experiment with adjusting the brightness and contrast of selections and images, and use tools that pinpoint changes in the luminance of a picture. As to whether the "colorized" picture is an improvement over the black and white original, we'll leave that up to you.