I have tried to make a point of never having the same thing twice on my blog. I think it is an interesting exercise to write about a new subject each time. I think it has made me a better writer. But it does not lend itself well to writing longer pieces.

The stories are still rolling in about the amazing art of Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) and how he was inspired by Byzantine art. A recent one can be found here . The story is based on a new book, Art History: Stories Behind the World’s Greatest Works , by Caterina Vieri, who is an assistant professor of art history at Georgia State University.

It occurred to me that there are many people who are interested in trying their hand at this type of art. There are many websites with tutorials, but none that I have seen that tell you how to create your own look using colorized images. Here is 4-Step Guide to Making Colorized Art

Step 1: Find a Black and White image

I’m going to share my process for colorizing my art. It’s a two-fold process: 1. digitally colorizing, and 2. creating a texture that is not found in nature.

First off, it should be said that there are as many ways to colorize as there are artists who colorize. This is just one way, and my way. If you want to do it differently, by all means go ahead! I am describing the method I use, not how it must be done! With that in mind….

Step One: Choosing an Image

There are a lot of great images out there, free for the taking and adding color to. I usually like images with great patterns or shapes in them: old maps, stained glass windows, etc., but really anything works! Just look around online and you’ll find some great stuff.

Step Two: Creating a Color Palette

A palette is just a set of colors that you plan to use when coloring your image. You can choose colors from the original image itself or create new ones from scratch. You can even combine the two! The number of colors on your palette will depend on how many colors are in your image and how much detail you want in each individual object/object group

I made some notes about how I approached this piece, in case anyone else is interested.

1) Colorize the image. I used Photoshop to do this, but there are other programs out there that will do similar things.

2) Find good color reference images of your subject matter. This is the step that takes the most time and effort, but the results are the most important to get right. I used a mixture of photos I took myself, and stock images from Wikimedia Commons.

3) Create a light source in your image using a pen tool or another tool that creates vector-based shapes (V for those into design lingo). The light source can be implied or explicit; however, it’s usually best to keep it simple and less obvious than in this piece.

4) Mask out the parts of your image where you don’t want color to show through and add texture where necessary. This is the most time-consuming part of the process, since you’re essentially drawing a new image over your old one with different colors.”

Colorization is a process by which black and white photographs are converted to color. Colorization adds additional complexity and time to an already time-consuming activity.

Colorizing is an artistic endeavor, and it is not easy to do well. It requires careful judgment in selecting the right shades of color and then applying them using the same techniques that were used in producing the original photograph.

Step 1: Find a photo that you really like . . .

Step 2: Remove the background from the image.

Step 3: Choose your palette.

Step 4: Colorize.*

Byzantine art is a term for Western European art of about 1000 AD to 1500 AD; usually, but not always, taking its name from Byzantium, or later Constantinople. The term is used especially when discussing Early Medieval art of Western Europe, while similar material produced in Eastern Europe is described as Byzantine only when taken from an art historical perspective, such as the 8th century Vienna Coronation Gospels (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. 2060). This would lead us to believe that even though these paintings are not done with traditional methods they are still considered part of Byzantine art because they follow its form and style. There was no

Step 1: Find a Black and White Photo

Rule of thumb: the older the photo, the more dramatic the results. Some of my favorite photos to colorize are from the Second World War.

Step 2: Add Color

There are many ways to add color. You can use a tool such as Photoshop or you can do it manually with a paint brush in GIMP. I usually make a base layer of color and then paint on top of that. Be careful not to overdo it; especially on faces you want your subject to look realistic and not like they stepped out of a comic book (unless you’re going for that look).

Step 3: Contrast Adjustments

Adding color to black and white photos often makes them appear flat or dull. It can be difficult to get the right balance between realism and vibrancy. You can adjust contrast either in your editing software or through manual adjustments with a paint brush or airbrush in GIMP or Photoshop. I find it easiest to begin with automatic contrast adjustments and then fine tune further by hand.

Step 4: Final Touches

Once you’ve achieved the desired look, save your image as a jpeg file at maximum quality level in your editing software. That’s it!

There are a lot of tutorials out there that make it seem like coloring your images is extremely difficult. I admit, at first I thought so too. But in reality, it’s not that hard to get started with colorizing your images. There are many different ways to approach the process, but I want to give you one quick way to do this that has worked for me when coloring images, and that anyone can easily pick up.

Byzantine art is a style of medieval art with several distinctive features in the monumental arts of the Byzantine Empire, especially as developed in Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Here are the steps, in order:

4. Remove any noise. The computer probably already did this for you automatically, but sometimes a little more is needed. This step uses the same techniques as restoring old photographs – basically, it’s all about reducing contrast.