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How to get back original color in pictures?? Help needed please...

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    How to get back original color in pictures?? Help needed please...

    Hi All,

    How is everyone doing?? I just joined this forum and am glad to have done so

    I have been using IrfanView for many, many years and I have a problem just today that I cannot seem to solve. It could be a simple one, but here goes...

    My Fiance sent me a picture of hers that she converted into Grayscale in IrfanView. But when I import the picture into Lightroom, I can see the original color photograph as a thumbnail. However, when I double-click on the thumbnail, the file opens as Grayscale. I am sure the original color is still in the file, but need someone to tell me how to get it to show on IrfanView or any other image viewer.

    Cheers!

    #2
    Unless you have set all JPG images to load in greyscale, IrfanView will load colour images in colour. If all photos are loading as greyscale, then check your options settings.

    f an image been converted to greyscale there is no colour information left in the file. The colour thumbnail tells you nothing about the colour depth of the actual image.
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      #3
      Originally posted by Bhikkhu Pesala View Post
      Unless you have set all JPG images to load in greyscale, IrfanView will load colour images in colour. If all photos are loading as greyscale, then check your options settings.

      f an image been converted to greyscale there is no colour information left in the file. The colour thumbnail tells you nothing about the colour depth of the actual image.
      NO, only this file is a problem. Every other color picture loads as it is. So you're saying even though I can see a color thumbnail, there's no way I can view the picture in another color mode apart from Grayscale?

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        #4
        If there's no colour information in the file, what is there to view?

        Attach the file, or post a link to it if you want someone to check it.
        Last edited by Bhikkhu Pesala; 31.03.2014, 09:38 AM.
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          #5
          Originally posted by Bhikkhu Pesala View Post
          If there's not colour information in the file, what is there to view?

          Attach the file, or post a link to it if you want someone to check it.
          Here you go. I have attached the picture and a snapshot of how it shows when I import into Lightroom. Hope this helps...
          Attached Files

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            #6
            As it says in the image Info box, only 251 unique colours, so the colour information is not there to recover. Ask your Fiance to save it as a full colour image.
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              #7
              If you display your picture in Irfanview and press E to show the Exif information embedded in the jpeg file you will see at the bottom information about the 300x300 pixel thumbnail that was created by the camera when the picture was taken. That is what you are looking at with Lightroom and that is still in color.

              Unfortunately your main 4928x3264 pixel image was converted to grayscale and saved like that. There is now no way that you can recover the color of the big image although I would expect that in Lightroom you could extract the little Exif thumbnail. Irfanview always recreates thumbnails from the main image so you will always see it in grayscale there.
              The images below are from another program that can show both.

              Click image for larger version

Name:	Extracted from Exif data.jpg
Views:	1
Size:	90.1 KB
ID:	80717 Thumbnail extracted from Exif data

              Click image for larger version

Name:	Recreated from image.jpg
Views:	1
Size:	81.9 KB
ID:	80718 Thumbnail recreated from main image

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                #8
                Originally posted by Mij View Post
                If you display your picture in Irfanview and press E to show the Exif information embedded in the jpeg file you will see at the bottom information about the 300x300 pixel thumbnail that was created by the camera when the picture was taken. That is what you are looking at with Lightroom and that is still in color.

                Unfortunately your main 4928x3264 pixel image was converted to grayscale and saved like that. There is now no way that you can recover the color of the big image although I would expect that in Lightroom you could extract the little Exif thumbnail. Irfanview always recreates thumbnails from the main image so you will always see it in grayscale there.
                The images below are from another program that can show both.

                [ATTACH=CONFIG]3175[/ATTACH] Thumbnail extracted from Exif data

                [ATTACH=CONFIG]3176[/ATTACH] Thumbnail recreated from main image
                Oh ok, getting the 'picture' now
                Can you please let me know what program you're using to extract the thumbnail?

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                  #9
                  I was using Wildbit viewer.
                  An apology though. Opening the Exif data in Wildbit I see that the thumbnail is not 300x300 pixels but only 160x120. The 300x300 figure was the resolution in dpi not the actual size. Irfanview does not list that but Wildbit does.

                  Click image for larger version

Name:	Exif data.png
Views:	1
Size:	76.5 KB
ID:	80720

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by Mij View Post
                    I was using Wildbit viewer.
                    An apology though. Opening the Exif data in Wildbit I see that the thumbnail is not 300x300 pixels but only 160x120. The 300x300 figure was the resolution in dpi not the actual size. Irfanview does not list that but Wildbit does.

                    [ATTACH=CONFIG]3178[/ATTACH]
                    Thanks again, looks like there's no way to get the original picture because the thumbnail is quite small. But appreciate the help a lot. Thank you again Bhikku and Mij.

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                      #11
                      time machine

                      One of the methods trying to recover the lost colors is to (check attachment):
                      - extract the thumbnail
                      - open large and thumb pics in Photoshop
                      - switch both images in Lab color
                      - resize thumb to match large image size
                      - copy luminosity chanel from large pic to thumb luminosity chanel
                      - copy thumb layer to large pic
                      - close thumb image (no save)
                      - merge down layers
                      - switch image to RGB mode
                      - save it

                      Anyway, since the color data is small it has lots of loss and errors. It is required an edit but at least now you have some color to your picture
                      Attached Files
                      Imi este indiferent ce cred ceilalti despre mine, caci oricum fiecare crede ce-i convine lui si nu ceea ce e real,
                      doar ca mi-ar fi placut sa ma vada asa cum sint de fapt, nu asa cum poate le-ar placea lor sa creada. Ei au ales deja...

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