This is a colorized image I rather quickly made from an old (ca. 1875) photograph of an unknown Chinese-Filipino woman taken by Dutch photographer Francisco Van Camp.
It's impossible to know what color baro’t saya she was wearing. Prints from the era show that a pañuelo (shawl) worn over a camisa (blouse) with a saya (skirt) sometimes layered with a tapis (over-skirt) was the fashion du jour at the time. The pañuelo and camisa were often made from piña, the fiber from pineapple leaves, and is anywhere from white to parchment in color but it can be dyed too. In this case it looks like the camisa could be linen.
Red and gold seems to be a popular color combination in Chinese geometric motifs so that was chosen for the meander pattern on her pañuelo, though the pattern itself likely isn't Chinese. I tried different colors for the surrounding material (see below) but I've yet to find anything satisfactory.
Edit: on closer inspection of a higher-resolution version of the photo from the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac the lighter part of the pattern appears to be nearly transparent and the darker surround more opaque. That or it's showing overprinting or bleed through. I really can't make much sense of what I'm looking at now, but I'm convinced the shawl needs a complete reworking.
Knowing nothing of fashion in 19th century Spanish colonial Philippines before starting this it is mere coincidence that I came up with anything matching the print. If I work on it further I may try to make the blouse more translucent looking.
As for the studio backdrop, I doubt it was red but it does make for a striking image. More likely it was gray or something else subdued.
One difficulty in colorizing old photos is the tone response of the photographic medium is usually very different than what you would get by separating color images into their hue, saturation, and lightness components. Below is a before and after comparison.
If one were to simply add color to the unretouched original, as seen in the left pane below, without adjusting the tone as well, as seen in the right pane, the colorization will never look convincing. It looks like those old hand-tinted prints, actually.
Another issue I see, especially with skin tones, is the lack of hue and saturation variation between highlights, midtones, and shadows. In general, shadows should be less saturated and take on colors from the surroundings (i.e. bounced light). Specular reflections should take on the color of the light source. Essentially what the colorist needs to do is create the appearance of white light (or white balance) when the scene calls for it.
To demonstrate this common mistake I'll use the following example in which skin tones show no variation between shadow and highlight and don't look natural.
Here is my take on the same image.
Note how shadows contain more sky and water color and are "cooler" overall. Skin shows hue variation between tanned, sunburned, and untanned areas. Sky and water have also been adjusted for a more natural appearance.
Knowing what needs to be done and how to do it is the difference between the better colorists out there, such as Jecinci, Klimbim, and the rest.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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| "A Mestiza de Sangley" - Francisco Van Camp, ca. 1875 / Colorization by LoneSky. |
It's impossible to know what color baro’t saya she was wearing. Prints from the era show that a pañuelo (shawl) worn over a camisa (blouse) with a saya (skirt) sometimes layered with a tapis (over-skirt) was the fashion du jour at the time. The pañuelo and camisa were often made from piña, the fiber from pineapple leaves, and is anywhere from white to parchment in color but it can be dyed too. In this case it looks like the camisa could be linen.
Red and gold seems to be a popular color combination in Chinese geometric motifs so that was chosen for the meander pattern on her pañuelo, though the pattern itself likely isn't Chinese. I tried different colors for the surrounding material (see below) but I've yet to find anything satisfactory.
Edit: on closer inspection of a higher-resolution version of the photo from the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac the lighter part of the pattern appears to be nearly transparent and the darker surround more opaque. That or it's showing overprinting or bleed through. I really can't make much sense of what I'm looking at now, but I'm convinced the shawl needs a complete reworking.
 |
| Credit: Musée du quai Branly / Jacques Chirac |
Knowing nothing of fashion in 19th century Spanish colonial Philippines before starting this it is mere coincidence that I came up with anything matching the print. If I work on it further I may try to make the blouse more translucent looking.
As for the studio backdrop, I doubt it was red but it does make for a striking image. More likely it was gray or something else subdued.
One difficulty in colorizing old photos is the tone response of the photographic medium is usually very different than what you would get by separating color images into their hue, saturation, and lightness components. Below is a before and after comparison.
If one were to simply add color to the unretouched original, as seen in the left pane below, without adjusting the tone as well, as seen in the right pane, the colorization will never look convincing. It looks like those old hand-tinted prints, actually.
Another issue I see, especially with skin tones, is the lack of hue and saturation variation between highlights, midtones, and shadows. In general, shadows should be less saturated and take on colors from the surroundings (i.e. bounced light). Specular reflections should take on the color of the light source. Essentially what the colorist needs to do is create the appearance of white light (or white balance) when the scene calls for it.
To demonstrate this common mistake I'll use the following example in which skin tones show no variation between shadow and highlight and don't look natural.
Here is my take on the same image.
Note how shadows contain more sky and water color and are "cooler" overall. Skin shows hue variation between tanned, sunburned, and untanned areas. Sky and water have also been adjusted for a more natural appearance.
Knowing what needs to be done and how to do it is the difference between the better colorists out there, such as Jecinci, Klimbim, and the rest.
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