How best to colorize the face only in a black+white pic

[GMP]

I have a black and white photo and I want to colorize the face only for a face swap.  I do have plenty of color pics of the same face, not sure if I can use them with this. What's the best way to accomplish this? I don't mind taking the time and effort to do a good job

[rich2005]

Not too sure if it is the best way but it is reasonably quick.
Using the gimp_gmic_qt plugin and one of the colorize filters.

A long one for me: 4'-30'' https://youtu.be/iP7sM4yGMm8

[GMP]

Thanks, Rich. This looks very good. Is that you talking? It says RichGug1. Everything seemed to go fine until I got to GMIC and I got an error and couldn't go any further.

Here's the message:

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=C256E2DAE2...DAE26B22A5

[PixLab]

(07-20-2021, 02:40 AM)GMP Wrote: Thanks, Rich. This looks very good. Is that you talking? It says RichGug1. Everything seemed to go fine until I got to GMIC and I got an error and couldn't go any further.

Here's the message:

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=C256E2DAE2...DAE26B22A5

In G'MIC I use > Testing > Samj > Various > Recolorize 20130115 or search for "Recolorize 20130115" Never got a problem

You need to use 2 layers of the same size, (drop your photo in GIMP, then "create a new layer button" at the bottom of the layer's dock will create a new layer of the same size
Play with "Nuances/Decompose" and other sliders, you'll be surprised

[rich2005]

@GMP ..." It says RichGug1..." It comes from an old, now defunct Gimp forum Gimp User Group (GUG)

The error is layers of different size, so best guess is the Input Layers option - should be active and above (not active, not all)
If you have problems just work on the two layers, the B/W image layer and the one above that for the colour patches.

Knowing your love of layer masks, take it one step at a time, do the colouring as a separate process. Then do your face replacement as another operation.

[GMP]

I  got it working without the error messages. I made sure all the layers were the same size. I've attached the Gimp screen saves. The result aren't very good, so I need to know how I can improve what I'm doing. I followed the instructions on  Rich's video and then also tried the Testing re-colorization. 

The top pic is the result of Black + white / colorize photo. The 2nd pic is what it looked like before GMIC. The 3rd pic is the same as this except my patches layer is off, the bottom pic is the result of the Testing re-colorization Thanks for all the help so far

   
   
[attachment=6391]

[rich2005]

You need to be more accurate, You can see where you painted in the lips, far to wide, use a smaller brush.
I did mention in the video, paint out the background with white to prevent that 'flood fill'  Also do not forget white bits such as teeth. 
Generally more painting required.

   

[GMP]

Thanks Rich, I see what you mean about the lips and the teeth, I can fix that. I guess I'm more wondering why the face skin didn't do very well. In the bottom pic I uploaded I used the Testing re-colorization method and I got fairly decent skin tone, although it colored the complete pic in flesh tone, which is fine, since all I care about is the face skin.

 I redid these with no lip color and the skin tone still wasn't good. In my case do I need to color the hair and  paint out the background with white to prevent that 'flood fill  What is Flood Fill?

I'm glad you took my original pic and painted on it. The way you painted the face skin, is that good enough or do I need to be careful and accurate completely filling on all the face skin?

[rich2005]

What is flood fill ? - When that colour fill all of the image.

Just try and experiment and eventually you will get there. There are other methods, the gmic interactive colorize for example, the one you are using is as simple as anything and more complicated is not what you want at the moment.

Not as much fun as processing yourself and you never learn anything but there are on-line sites. Try https://playback.fm/colorize-photo

[GMP]

I'm amazed at the good result. I can still tweak it some now that I have it. The pic was 4500 x 3200 it rejected it and then I scaled it to 2300 x 1600 that was rejected also, then 1200 x 800 was ok, but it was pixilated too much. So then I went up to 2300 x 1600 and this time I cropped just the lady and that result is far better.

I still like your method and am wondering if you think I can get that kind of result from GMIC using your method?

Also do you see anything wrong with the way I did my patch as far as the skin? Would coloring the hair and background help the face?

I couldn't upload the file here so here it is

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=C256E2DAE2...DAE26B22A5