Which color product to use as base for colorizing?

[charlesl6086777]

I am photographing a handbag to be used online. There are multiple colors of the bag. For uniformity in light and appearance, I decided on shooting just one bag which I intend to colorize into the different colors. I was wondering if there is an ideal starting color to mix into the separate hues. The color options for the product range from deep red to tan to teal to black.

Or I could colorize from ground up using a B & W image like here: https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/how-to-colorize-a-black-white-photograph
Any advice would be great!

[Mylenium · Accepted solution]

Simply use a midtone color - a reasonably light brown (but not ocre or beige, either), a medium green and so on. The real trick with this stuff is to find a good color that leaves highlights and shadows intact and distinct enough for later manipulation without creating endless selections. You should also make sure that the actual "color" information is also prominent enough in at least one of the channels, so you can derive a quick selection from it without having to isolate lights and shadows first. I would advise against a monochrome approach, since this will most of the time simply look too flat in both directions, both with lighter colors and darker colors.

Mylenium

[charlesl6086777]

Thank you so much!!! Will try that next time for sure.

I ended up shooting using Black.

Colorizing into this color isn't really happening....