[krantzbucks]

Roger Metzger with the 1974 Astros. These last images you are working with are going to be tough to do a great color-job. Images that are too light or too dark will be the bane of your existence when colorizing. I haven't tried the Joe Hague image that you are struggling with, but all of those images are very light. I will experiment a little to see what, if anything, can be done. The Metzger image you posted is grainy as you know. I haven't found a lot of options to repair or "fix" this issue. About the only technique I have had any luck with is the "gaussian blur" which can be found in GIMP's "filters" tab then go to blur, then gaussian blur. I did this selectively after coloring the face, the hat, and then the uniform. the H logo was last (after cutting and pasting a black and white version of the logo onto the hat) and the darkened the black areas. It looks very.... weird when it is large sized, but not so bad at smaller versions. You might also try the "soft glow" option which can also be found in the filters list under "artistic". Soft glow can be faded by an option in the edit menu.