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True Colours – Volume II

George Chilvers Colorization Hed

By Phil Hecken

Some of you fine readers may recall an article I penned back in April of 2009, entitled True Colors – Volume I, which featured the first article on colorization on Uni Watch, and featuring the fantastic work of Larry Bodnovich. Although I’ve done several pieces on colorization since then, I never had a “Volume II.” Until today.

For those of you who have been following the “Colorize This!” segments following the main articles, you’ll be very familiar with the name George Chilvers, who has been quite active in colorizing the photos I’ve displayed on here. In last weekend’s “Colorize This!” segment, I even drew your attention to George’s website, where he also displays many other colorized soccer photos.

Earlier this week, George sent me the colorized version of today’s splash photo. I was simply blown away. George was extremely proud of his efforts (and rightly so), and he sent the following explanation to describe his technique:

Hi Phil

Thought I’d take up the bigger challenge. And it was quite a challenge!

First issue was sorting out the colours, and I’m sure someone’s going to tell me they’re wrong — if you know they are let me know and I can alter them. I know Army now wear black, grey and gold, but clearly this picture doesn’t have black jerseys. I found a site that seemed to indicate Marines in cardinal and gold, and knowing about the debates in the past about blue looking quite pale in monochrome pictures I’ve gone for what you see. Army’s pants I just had a hunch weren’t blue (the obvious choice to colourise) so I’ve gone for a tan.

The great thing about doing these pictures is the detail you see that you never notice before when just taking a quick look at the b&w image. Once you get the colour in, what was previously a tangle of grey bodies takes some shape. I know it may sound ridiculous but it was only some way in I realised that the diagonal white line was a side line not a yardage line. The shape of the play then became clearer and started to make sense.

And do you see that the ball-carrier has a moustache!! Until I started doing him I didn’t! Or that number 16 on the ground is losing his pants!!

Best wishes
(even though I’ve just watched my team lose 1-0 – d’oh!!)

George

Several important tips for those who colorize old photos are contained within those two middle paragraphs. But more importantly, George’s studious techniques bring to light more than just how to colorize a photo, but also, how to even look at old photos. I must confess, I found that on Shorpy, and I simply thought it would be a terrific challenge for the UW colorizers. I never thought about the deep, rich history that even a black and white photograph contains. And, still even more importantly, how that history can be brought to life through the very act of colorization. Great, great stuff.

I’ve had some ongoing conversations with George, but I felt it was really time to get to know him better, and to find out a little more about him, and his talent. George was more than happy to oblige. I first asked him to please explain his colorization technique, because he is obviously extremely skilled at this “art.” Here’s what he said:

~~~

SOME THOUGHTS ON COLOURISING/COLORIZING
By George Chilvers

“The techniques of colourising have been outlined before and there are a few different ways of achieving the end result — so I will assume that you already have some idea of how to actually get the colour onto the image. If not, just dig out one of the earlier articles.

“But colourising isn’t just ‘Painting by Numbers.’ It isn’t select and press a button, and hey presto it’s red. It is an art. And you don’t need loads of whizzbang technology either — I use Photoshop 7, which is only slightly more up to date than some of the pictures I use it on.

“The first thing I’d say is figure out what result you’re trying to achieve. Usually I aim to have something that looks like a colour photograph. But you may be doing it to highlight the actual colours worn, so background isn’t important. Or maybe you want something arty, so colours can be vibrant or even a bit weird. Or maybe something else. It doesn’t matter what it is ”“ after all in the end it’s YOUR work. But if you have some idea what you’re doing it for, then you’ll know when you get it right.

“No matter if the photo appears monochrome to begin with, always convert it to greyscale, and then back to RGB (I work in RGB mode). That way any hint of colour remaining in the picture gets cleared away. This is particularly important if the picture has a sepia tone.

“I tend to work at reasonably low saturation levels. I suppose the nearest ‘real-life’ equivalent is hand-tinting photographs. Start subtly, and you can always increase the saturation, contrast and brightness levels at the end. If you’ve spread the colour on thickly with the equivalent of an emulsion brush it’s far harder to tone down later.

“If, like me, you want the end result to look like a photo then look at loads and loads of colour photos. Not necessarily modern ones (although there’s no harm in it) ”“ I would suggest colour photos if available from the 50s and 60s. The reason is that modern cameras are so good that the backgrounds are a lot sharper. Have a look at what you can see in background crowd scenes in older colour photos — usually the background is blurry, with distinct spots of colour. I find that nothing makes a picture look realistic than a few spots of bright colour (yellow, red, green) — crowds don’t all wear the same clothes, and if you look at any crowds you’ll start to notice spots of brightness. Look at the picture and think ‘what makes that a colour photo, rather than a colour image on a monochrome background?’ People will think you’re mad, of course, but you’ll survive.

“Work at high zoom levels but you will often have to zoom back to normal size (or even smaller) to see what is going on in the area you’re working on. At 400% magnification it isn’t always possible to see if the selection you’re creating is still the arm you started on, or the field behind, or someone else’s head.

“And as is always said about computer work — save regularly. The main work is done as a psd file but I even save often as jpegs with slightly differing titles (add a 2 or a 3 to the end) just so if you get in a real tangle you have something to go back to.

“But most of all, have a go. Certainly to improve you need to be a little critical of your own work, but not too much. Enjoy it. Enjoy what you’ve achieved. See what can be improved, but most of all see how you have improved since the last picture you did. See what works ”“ and learn from what doesn’t. There’s no such thing as a piece that’s wrong — just one that can be made better.

“And keep on trying and sending them in.”

~~~

Really, really amazing, right? I’ve run out of adjectives to describe George’s assistance and expertise, so I’ll just stop here. But before we close down this chapter, let’s take one more minute to meet the man behind the talent.

Uni Watch: Tell us a little about yourself, George.

George Chilvers: Well, as you have probably guessed I’m a Brit. I was born in Liverpool many many years ago. Just to prove this isn’t just a young guy’s thing, let me just say that when I was born the Queen wasn’t the Queen!! I now live in Wigan. Married, two kids who are both teachers of arty subjects, although I don’t work in that sphere at all.

UW: So what sport and team do you follow?

GC: My main sport is football (I know you call it soccer, but you’ll learn). I grew up supporting Liverpool, but we moved out to Wigan (only about 15 miles away) soon after we got married and when my son wanted to go to football games I took him to our local team, Wigan Athletic. At the time they were just a small team, but over the years they have moved steadily up until now they are in the Premier League. I gradually changed allegiance, and now don’t miss a home game and go to a few away games. I even worked for them for a few years in charge of the tunnel area.

UW: There’s no connections with American sport then?

GC: Funnily enough there is. When I was a youngster I used to listen (on my “transistor radio”) to broadcasts on AFN to the US troops in Germany of Sunday night football games. For some reason I really liked the Packers. But even then I was interested in what colours teams wore, and would wait for the one little snippet like “Giants in their blue jerseys…” Later on TV in the UK broadcast live NFL action for a few years which my son and I watched avidly. By now we had become Redskins fans — mainly because he had a Redskins jersey that came down to his knees!

UW: So what’s your interest in Uni Watch?

GC: Two nations separated by a single language (Oscar Wilde) lol. To us uniforms are “kits”, and ever since I have been so high I have loved knowing what colour kit football teams wear. I used to fill notebooks with drawings of them — now it would be diagnosed as Obsessive Compulsive whatever — but then it was just fun.

In the pre-internet days, as I said above, you had to grasp whatever snippets you could of what colours a team wore, but over time you began to learn how to tell from black and white images what was the likely bet, and even if you knew that one team wore red, the the other team in “grey” was probably wearing blue.

UW: And the colorizing?

GC: The colourising you mean lol? I have always loved looking at old photos and wondering what they looked like coloured in. I recently found some football books from when I was a kid, and found that I had in fact coloured in some of the pictures with pencils. Obviously then the advent of PCs, and particularly Photoshop, changed my horizons forever. And Google helped me find your site which was brilliant for me as I realised that I wasn’t the only obsessive one! UW has opened up a new vista for me, as I’d never really tought before about colourising baseball photos. To me they were white or grey — just shows how wrong you can be!

UW: So is it just sports pictures?

GC: No. I’m also interested in family history, and have my own site for that too. On this page, half-way down there’s a picture of Wesley Chilvers — coloured by me! I did the one of George too, but I think Wesley is much better.

UW: And your aim in life?

GC: To live to a hundred and be shot by a jealous husband :)

~~~

Thanks George. And because I always like to put a face with a name, I asked George to send along a photo of himself. So here he is, in his glory at the Hampden pitch in 2008, dutifully dressed in a scarf and awating the beginning of a soccer football match.

~~~~~~~~~~

Playoffs?

Playoffs?

The first round of Wild Card games begin today with two games this afternoon and evening. In the early game, we have the Saints, defending Super Bowl Who Dats, traveling to the home of the 12th man, Seattle, to take on the NFC West Division Champion Seahawks. If you haven’t been following the NFL recently, then you might be interested to know that the Seahawks own the dubious distinction of being the first team to advance to the current playoff format with a losing record, finishing at 7-9.

In the late game, the J-E-T-S Jets-Jets-Jets travel back to Indy for a rematch of last year’s AFC Championship Game, taking on Peyton and the Colts. Gang Green is full of confidence and their coach is full of himself and his wife has, *ahem* pretty feet. The Colts are not the team they once were, beset by injuries and needing like 4 straight victories just to make the playoffs. Sexy Rexy has made it personal, hoping to avenge last year’s loss in Indy and to back up all the dirty words he used on HBO’s Hard Knocks this summer.

Like last year, I’ll be picking my choices by uniform again — I did much better in the NFL playoff’s last year than I did in the NCAA football pool this year — and unlike the NCAA pool, I’ll be using spreads to determine the record, not straight picks like the college stuff. So, in the league where they play for pay…here’s the predictions for today’s games:

seahawks vs saints

New Orleans Saints (-10) at Seattle Seahawks (over/under 44.5): The Seahawks are home, so they’ll have the benefit of the 12th man, which is no small advantage. They will almost assuredly be wearing their suicide blue monochrome mess, and in fact, they wore that combination in every home game this year. It’s not a good look.

The Saints, as the road team, will be wearing their white jerseys, with which they have paired the gold pants and the black ballet pants this season. They’ve won in both, but the gold is an infinitely better look, and not just because they don’t look like they’re in tights. After a brief *scare* yesterday that the Saints might break out an all white look for the first time since they opened the Superdome, it is my understanding they’ll wear the black pants.

Ten points is a lot to be giving up, on the road, even if you’re the defending Super Bowl champs, and you won the Super Bowl wearing the gold pants … but the uniform, even with the black trou, is still enough to tip the scales in the Saints’ favor. Take the Who Dat’s and give the points and take the under: Saints 27 – Seahawks 10.

jets vs colts

New York Jets (+3) at Indianapolis Colts (o/u 44.5): In a rematch of last year’s AFC Championship, where the Jets gave the Colts a first half scare before ultimately getting their butts whipped, the Colts were the far better team. The gap has closed considerably this year, with the Colts needing a string of wins to make the playoffs. Will they succomb to an Atlanta Braves laissez-faire-type home crowd, who aren’t used to seeing their team in the Wild Card? Are all those injuries enough to finally let the Jets get past the defending AFC champs?

In the uniform battle, it will be simple and beautiful. The Colts will be in blue over white, while the Jets will be in white jerseys. On the road this year, they have worn nothing but white over white, despite having a seldom-used set of green pants. So the chances are almost 100% that we’ll see the all whites today.

Normally, I’d say the Colts home uniform is slightly better the Jets’ roadies, but several of the Colts like to sport the super stretchies, which make both the jerseys and the pants look incredibly stupid on those who wear them. And that is enough to tip the scales in favor of the Jets.

The Jets are getting 3 points, and Peyton is still Peyton, but I’m smelling an upset here. Take the points and Gang Green and hope Sanchez’ knee is ok. Squeeze out the over: Jets 24 – Colts 21.

~~~

Now, if you’re betting real money (or even if you’re not), maybe you want to flip those picks to improve your chances. But I finished up the 2010 NFL playoffs at 7-4, so obviously “picking by the better uni” works better in the pros than college. Either that, or I need to change my definition of the “better” uni.

~~~~~~~~~~

all sport uni tweaks

Uni Tweaks

Lots and lots of tweaks keep pouring in, so obviously this is a popular feature. A bunch new to get to today. If you have a tweak, change or concept for any sport, send them my way.

Remember, if possible, try to keep your descriptions to ~50 words (give or take) per tweak. You guys have been great a keeping to that, and it’s much appreciated!

Got a big set of tweaks today…so lets get right into it.

Now, on to today’s tweaks:

~~~

Starting off the show is Matt Malinoski, a favorite tweaker, with his take on the A’s, Chisox & Rays:

Phil,

Here are my latest tweaks.

Athletics: I did a tweak a while back using kelly green, but some readers said they would have liked it better in the shade of green they use today. So here they are.

White Sox: I used white stirrups and put the sock patch on both jerseys. I changed the number typeface to the one they used in the sixties and removed the front numbers. I changed the road uniform to the style used in 1969-70, using black instead of blue, and with an updated “WHITE SOX” in the tail. I also connected the “C” to the “h”.

Rays: I thought I’d take a stab at rebranding the Rays. The logo is a sun with the word “RAYS” in it, with each ray of the sun in the shape of home plate. I used a font, Flatbush Beanery, for all lettering. I used the current stirrups with retro Cardinals/Cubs piping, and a zipper front. I came up with alternate gray and Columbia Blue uniforms. I couldn’t bring myself to come up with a plaid one.

Thanks,

Matt Malinoski

~~~

Next up is David Robertson, who has five football tweaks — rendered in MS Paint. Don’t be cruel:

I have the Eagles’ home, Bills’ home, Patriots’ home, Falcons’ home, and a USC gold jersey. I was just messing around with Paint and thought they turned out pretty good. Let me know what you think!

Sincerely,

Dave

~~~

Our last tweaker today is Andrew Seagraves, who has a whole mess of BYU concepts:

Phil;

These are my first tweaks to submit to you.

I wondered what the “racing stripe” look from the older US soccer kit would look like on a football uniform, So I decided to tweak BYU’s jerseys to see what it would look like, and add in grey to their color scheme. I also changed the helmet to the old school blue with white oval. I have three home combos and three away combos.

My other tweak has to do with the 1940 photos of BYU’s uniforms shown on the blog in mid-December. For the shoulder stripes, numbers and pants I used today’s navy blue. I used BYU’s old Royal Blue.

I hope you enjoy!

Andrew Seagraves

~~~

That’s it for today. Check back tomorrow for more.

~~~~~~~~~~

And that’s going to wrap up today’s post, folks. Enjoy the NFL, and of course, there’s still the sad sack loser bowl BBVA Compass Bowl tonight, featuring powerhouses Pittsburgh and Kentucky. Big, big thanks again to George Chilvers for his tremendous advice and uniquely British humour today.

Last note: Yinzer Watch rained out: Doug Keklak reports that this weekend’s Yinzer Watch gathering has been cancelled. No makeup date has yet been announced.

~~~

Dull-colored pants call attention to the most welcome striped frolicking on jerseys and socks. Phil’s colorization feature on weekends provides ample evidence of the ways in which dull pants (and dull helmets, for that matter) showcase the jazzy stuff on shirts and socks. — “Broadway” Connie

 
  
 
Comments (82)

    Now that is a glorious colorization! It almost makes me think I’m standing on the sideline, not looking at a painting.

    Two observations:

    On the colors – military sports teams outside the academies could be wearing almost any colors. When my dad was with the USAF in Japan in the early 60s, he played on various squadron/base teams. The surviving jerseys are combinations of yellow/gold with blue/purple.

    As for the sharp backgrounds, it’s not the cameras that are so much better today, it’s the film (or sensors). Faster film = smaller f-stops = more depth of field = crowds in focus.

    Was thinking same thing. Part of it might be that there was nothing oddball about the unis in either football game last night.

    Although was a bit interesting that, because of its design, the Eastern Washington eagle logo was facing to the rear on the right side of the helmet.

    —Ricko

    As to today’s tweaks:

    Dave – like your Eagles and Falcons tweaks.

    Andrew – racing stripe is an interesting idea, but I don’t think it transfers very well to football. Love the throwback!

    Matt – like the Pale Hose treatment. I think the A’s would do better to return to the brighter green.

    In other news, link (rookie league affiliate of the Rockies) have been sold to the Rockies’ owners and there’s a rumor in the comments that they may be moving closer to Denver, in which case they’ll likely change mascots too. If the move goes through, I’d vote for High Plains Drifters as the new name.

    I LOVE the fact that a British kid is a fan of the Redskins!! Don’t lose faith buddy! HTTR!

    Super stretchies. The way the stripes meander down the leg due to the thigh pads…is it more pronounced than the old days? When I drew football players as a kid, back in the 60’s and 70’s, I learned the stripes were never straight because of the thigh pads.

    These days the tight jerseys do interesting things to the front numbers in particular…wide up top due to the shoulder pads, and skinnier at the bottom.

    that was a great read george, and i hope everybody who colourizes reads what you wrote about your approach to a piece, that is extremely important, and articulated perfectly. all this makes me wish all my projects were done so i could sit down and really spend a whole day on link.

    “traveling to the home of the 12th man, Seattle”

    Umm, the ‘Home of the 12th Man’ is Kyle Field in College Station, TX, not stadium in the NW.

    link

    Ummm, there’s no rule against celebrating the 12th man becaus A&M does it.

    Seattle is huge on that. They sell 12th man jerseys ironically with the #12 retired for the fans…they have a fan, usually someone famous, raise a 12th man flag, all sorts of stuff like that.

    12th man is really a pretty generic term…it’s not like they’re screaming all over Seattle that they’re going to gig the saints

    Actually Chris there is…

    A&M has the phrase “12th man” trademarked. The seahawks actually had to gain permission from the school to use the phrase which theyre are liscensed to do as long as they acknowledge its as Texas A&M’s property

    It’s trademarked, but its such a common phrase 12th man.

    The front page of the Seattle paper this morning had a giant headline 12th Man from Day One.

    link

    A&M gonna sue that fan?

    I always like comments that include the words “get a life”… they’re usually the least ironic…

    Wow one of my favorite topics. Colorizing old sports pictures. Thanks for the shout out Phil.

    I had not been doing as much colorizing as I used to do but I always checked out the fine work the past few weeks here.

    I have not even read all of today’s column since I was excited to comment. I will read about George and his fine work in a bit.

    because it makes me want to kill myself?

    donno, actually — i’d heard it used, on UW i believe, and it seems fitting…is there an actual color name? (probably something original like “seahawk blue” i’m guessing)

    That’s a trademarked mothervilker term, so Phil owes me royalties.

    It’s just such a depressing shade of blue. I know the Pacific Northwest is all about the dreary, and I loves me some dreary, but those unis are way too much.

    I’m usually not litigious, though, so he can have that one and “Toy Combat” too.

    It’s called “Seahawk Blue” and the Pantone is 653 C. I actually love the tone, however, not the biggest fan of the monocromatic sort. I like it when they combine it with the dark navy blue pants.

    I think it would look more acceptable if they wore white pants at home. Although besides the monochrome – the other part that bothers me with their home look – is the slightly darker shade of their sleeves. It looks almost as it’s a mistake – i.e a problem matching colours with the different fabrics – than a deliberate design element.

    The monochrome in blue/grey shade they wear, however does seem keeping with the weather in Seattle – mostly pretty dreary.

    I like it on sunny days, even in monochrome, but that’s the only time.

    When they first came out I thought I’d love them, but I’d much rather have these:
    link
    Not sure about these…
    link

    Yeah but look at those sleeves on Zorn’s uni, they’re past his elbows – the good old days.

    I should add, with the different colour sleeves, I eventually clued in (and I’m assuming I’m right here), they’re suppose to be the same colour as the outline of the numbers – but it’s a look that just doesn’t work for me – the colours are too similiar. I do like their helmet though – with either design it’s always been one of the league’s best in my opinion.

    I know most people hate them, and I agree that dark monochrome is a BAD look, but for some reason I LOVE the all blue monochrome that the Seahawks wear. Their monochrome blue at home and white on the road is perfect for them.

    I actually think the Seahawks look ok for a monochrome look. But nothing the wear ever looks as good as their first season uniform with the royal blue jerseys and the plain silver helmets.

    Huh?

    Oh, you meant football. I’m watching Marquette at Pitt basketball right now (free ESPN Full Court this week for DirecTV subscribers).

    wait, what? i thought that game was tonight. ooooh-noooo! 27 to 10?! way to finish strong link. corn it all to heck, at least i had one day out of the cellar.

    i keep getting “duplicate comment” bs…

    wait, what? i thought that game was tonight. ooooh-noooo! 27 to 10?! way to finish strong link. corn it all to heck, at least i had one day out of the cellar.

    Well was helping a friend through some tough personal issues and didn’t get a chance to do my…
    Cotton Bowl Breakdown:
    Mascot Edge: Tigers v Aggies
    I did some research and turns out that an Aggie is simply a person who attends a land-grant agricultural and mechanical university. Apparently Texas A&M has a collie as their mascot. Dog or human it makes no difference because the Tiger would win.
    Uni Edge: A&M unis are too plain, LSU looks great even with mismatched striping. Advantage LSU

    Compass Bowl:
    Mascot Edge: Wildcats v Panthers
    Both are cats. Wildcats again are a little ambiguous and when I think of wildcats I usually think of a bobcat. Advantage Pitt.
    Uni Edge: slight edge to Kentucky. The Pitt helmets are a funky gold and I like the UK broken striping.

    Ah, but do we know the NAME of the Aggies’ collie mascot?
    (I ask because always thought it’s such a great name, considering the school n’ all).

    —Ricko

    Saw the answer below, but I was going to say Maggie. Rhymes with Aggie, plus Gregg’s hint made me think of Rod Stewart’s song.
    link

    Matt Malinoski’s White Sox uniform is the best uni tweak that I have seen so far on this website.

    Truly fantastic!

    So much better than a uniform that I already like fine.

    Mike

    I agree. Especially the road uniform with the old style script in white. It looks amazing!

    Watching the Army All-American game (unis not as offensive as the UA mess)… but thats not my point of interest.

    One of the kids just declared his intent to Oregon. Afterwards his dad was with him wearing an oregon national champion shirtsey and I over heard him make a comment about the numbers that I’ve never noticed till now.

    He was wearing lamichael james’s number but thought his wife got it wrong when he looked in the mirror. The 5 and 2 are mirror images. kind of silly of him seeing as the 1 has a serif but still something neat i never noticed or have seen before

    “The 5 and 2 are mirror images”

    Precisely. My biggest irritant with Bellotti Bold. There’s no reason those numbers should look that similar.

    Also of note: All the players in this game have the logos of different army divisions on the back of their helmets (similar to what West Point does with sleeve patches)

    Not too familiar with it but it sounds like the players were mentored by soldiers throughout the week and the logos are representative of the men who mentored them…. kind of odd that theyre wearing this insignia when you think about it though…

    Wikipedia said that they had Seahawks blue and Seahawks navy as their two shades of blue. I googled it and also came up with Pacific Blue and Navy Blue. It’s a sad state of affairs when someone will trademark something like “12th man”. It just goes to show how ridiculously litigated our society is. My guess is A&M wasn’t even the first team to use it and that it probably originated with a European soccer team somewhere.

    A&M was first, pretty neat story behind it too, google it… I think I’d be angered by it as well but it seems that its not trademarked with the intent to make money off of it. Like I said above, the Seahawks don’t pay for its use, they must simply acknowledge that its A&M’s

    The interesting thing is that they own “12th Man” and not “Tweflth Man” or the same phrase in other languages. This iteration of the phrase is big with a ton of Euro and South American teams who use this iteration legally… But alas, Texas A&M was first.

    Ok I just read about George and enjoyed his techniques. I too think the level of saturation is the key to making the pictures look good.

    Great job with the Shorpy football picture. The high quality of the b&w pictures helps the colorized results look better. When I saw Phil put that one up for the colorizers I thought about giving it a try. But I was not sure about the colors of the uniforms. So George did some nice research into possibly finding out the colors. I have no idea if they are correct but the result looks good and could be right on. I think the final picture looks great.

    Like George I too always loved old sports b&w pictures and pictures in general. There are a vocal group who are against tinkering with b&w pictures. I disagree. If they had color film back then the pictures would be in color. And the real world back then was in color anyhow sheesh.

    Much of colorizing is educated guesswork. But it can be fun. And I had looked at George’s soccer pictures on his site before too. All very cool

    So once again thanks very much to George and Phil for today’s column.

    Great tweaks again.

    Matt, they’re all good, but your A’s are my favorite. I do agree with DenverGregg – Oakland (hopefully San Jose soon) should go back to the lighter green.

    David, I love your Falcons. Usually it’s hard to mix modern and classic, but I think this one pulls it off.

    Andrew, again to agree with DenverGregg, I like the throwback but I’m not sure about the racing stripe. Glad you tried it, though – you never know until you try.

    Thanks, guys!

    Great write-up today guys! Fantastic colorizations George! link

    One of my favorite bands are from Wigan; “The Verve”.

    King George! Lord Chilvers of lancashire? Thanks, Phil, for all this on and with the master colouriser. Seems like a very good guy, to boot. Or is the boot the trunk?

    It’s Revellie. Or however you spell it. I only know because of my research earlier. Seattle is gray and dreary a lot of the year but come spring(still rainy but there are nice days) and summer the northwest is beautiful. I’d rather have rain and dreary in winter then the blizzards you get in the midwest, great lakes and back east.

    Bah. I’ll take 20° and snowing over 37° and raining any day.

    Plus, it’s a lot more fun to go sledding on snow than it is on soggy grass.

    One big snow per year, gone in four days. One weeklong stretch of 88 highs. Otherwise 68 and still, rain every 14th day. And zero dollar green fees. With no crowds. Is that too much to ask?

    After looking at the photo, George did such a good job that I’m not really concerned if the colors are that accurate because it’s pretty beautiful. I have looked at George’s website before and this is my favorite of his other colorizations: link

    Really nice work.

    As far as monochrome goes, Seattle’s all blue isn’t bad. White pants definitely serve them better, but this look is not terrible [throws up arms to defend the immense flogging he is about to receive], especially when up against stripeless Saints and the once-great-now-destoyed-and-awful looks of the Jets and Colts.

    I’ll take the look of the Seahawks, and 1,000 floggings, over the look of the Saints, Colts, or Jets tonight.

    I’ll take trees and mountains over skyscrapers anyday. If you ever visit Seattle you’ll see it gets a bad rap for the rain and that’s really quite a beautiful landscape for a city. I live in southwest Washington so Portland is the closest major city(laugh all you want New Yorkers but over a million is major). Seattle is definitely worth the 2.5 hour drive for visits every now and
    again though.

    Over a million is major? Are you combining the populations of both cities?

    Whatever. I’m not bagging on the Pacific Northwest. I have a friend who lives in Portland. It’s a great town to visit. I’ve also been to Seattle a few times and enjoyed it quite a bit.

    It takes diff’rent strokes to move the world.

    I just realized that I’m wearing the Seahawks hat I bought in Seattle when Seahawks Stadium (as it was called at the time) was brand new.

    Clearly, that is the reason they won today.

    That, and the fact that I didn’t wear my green jersey.

    Although I am wearing a green raglan shirt with blue sleeves. Just coincidence, though.

    Great post today.

    Question – the main photo looks like it had a tilt-shift treatment applied. Is that just because ofnthe shallow depth of field, or is there something else going on?

    I have no idea if it’s trademarked or not, but the Bears call the fans the link. It’s a term I’ve never really given any thought to until today.

    And I’m pretty sure that Phil is well aware of Texas A&M as “The Home of the 12th Man”.

    Thanks for the kind words, folks.

    Princip> I have “Bitter Sweet Symphony” as my ring-tone :)

    And Mike 2> Spooky this, but until a few hours ago I didn’t even know what tilt-shift was until my son showed me. And then you make that comment almost immediately after! Weird. In answer to your question though, I used no techniques other than colourising. Any other effect is from the original photo. Sometimes I do find however that colourising itself adds some really good effects that aren’t apparent in the b&w original.

    George

    I think the Falcon’s tweak is great. I love the red helmet/red jersey combo, and the stripe on the sleeve. However, I’m not a fan of the Eagle’s one. I like the current uni with midnight green, and the throwback style to be kelly…

    As exciting game as it was, and Seattle for one day played great, it still seems wrong.

    Interesting note from indy-jets… gary brackett just introduced himself as from harvard.

    As a rutgers alum this pains me but I looked it up.. went to rutgers and is currently taking business classes at harvard

    The Jets have added a new wrinkle-the green midriff look on one of the defensive linemen.

    Is Oregon changing it’s BCS championship uni? Gray pants shown here. If so, I think it is a major upgrade over the initial uni. Looked so bland to begin with, now it looks decent. Would have preferred green instead of gray, but oh well….

    link

    Looks as if the U. of Utah hoops team wore throwbacks tonight:
    link
    Nice.

    By the way, don’t mens and womens college teams wear roughly the same basketball uni?
    Today, Notre Dame’s women wore this style,
    link
    while the men wore this:
    link
    Lovin’ that St. John’s uni in the background.

    Darn right you better like that St. John’s uni in the background B) But then again, ANY Nike team almost ALWAYS looks better when their wearing an SoD uni that isn’t gawdy-looking and BFBS against a homely-dressed Adidas team with that stupid necklace. This is a prime example.

    Also: I think that Utes… *ahem* RUNNIN’ Utes uni is their standard set.

    DenverGregg and Jim Vilk – Thanks so much for the feedback! This blog has helped me bring out my creative juices for designing uniforms and what you guys said is definitely encouraging!

    Also, big ups to Phil and everyone else for giving us this chance!

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