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

[PixLab]

(07-22-2021, 01:27 AM)GMP Wrote: 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.

It rejected???
Which "Recolorize" are you using?
I did it on a 3500x4436 without any problems > this full reso https://unsplash.com/photos/bVJpKjH5Ch0

[GMP]

I went to this website Rich suggested  https://playback.fm/colorize-photo   This is the error message I got several times

Whoops! There were some problems with your input.
The image failed to upload.

This pic was a large maybe 6x8 photo that I scanned at the highest resolution I could, so it was approximately 4500 x 3200. If I understand you correctly you went to this website and successfully did it with a 3500x4436 pic. Is that right? 

Not sure why it didn't like my pic. The only thing I thought I could change was the size. The result was pretty good, but I could still see the pixils when viewing at a large size.

[rich2005]

https://playback.fm/colorize-photo was the first I found with a search for "on-line colorize photo" there are others both free and pay-for . Another quick search brings up https://imagecolorizer.com/ and https://hotpot.ai/colorize-picture

I would not be surprised if they used the same "AI engine"

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

Here are the extremes:
(1) Hand colour the image from the start. This does require some artistic capabilities and a knowledge of how Gimp (or any graphic editor) works .
(2) Totally automatic as you get from one of those on-line tools. You have no control over the result. You gain no knowledge.

The advantage of a middle route - say using gmic is you can get a 'split result' with a layer that can be edited. Not as much effort as (1) but not as easy as (2). You do still need an understanding of how Gimp works. No shortcut to that. You will eventually get there but you have to keep trying.

[PixLab]

(07-22-2021, 04:10 PM)GMP Wrote: I went to this website Rich suggested  https://playback.fm/colorize-photo   This is the error message I got several times

Whoops! There were some problems with your input.
The image failed to upload.

This pic was a large maybe 6x8 photo that I scanned at the highest resolution I could, so it was approximately 4500 x 3200. If I understand you correctly you went to this website and successfully did it with a 3500x4436 pic. Is that right? 

Not sure why it didn't like my pic. The only thing I thought I could change was the size. The result was pretty good, but I could still see the pixils when viewing at a large size.

Oh, OK I understand, I was speaking about "Recolorize" in G'MIC, no a website.

[GMP]

Rich this website you suggested is much better. You can even select from 12 -25 as to how much processing and color. They also accept large pics
https://hotpot.ai/colorize-picture