Colorizing black and white photos

[edwest]

I offer the following for everyone's consideration:

http://twistedsifter.com/2014/04/his...tos-colorized/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0607190748.htm



Ed

[Dan O'Connell]

The ability to colorize is getting very good!

[edwest]

Yes. I just hope it makes current and future buyers of original color Luftwaffe photos all the more informed.



Best,
Ed

[John Beaman]

Thanks Ed. Very interesting.

The Gettysburg vets are Confederate and the one on the right is likely wearing a grey suit instead of brown.

The one of Lincoln at Sharpsburg (to us Southerners) is very interesting. If the penny designer did indeed use this as a base, he sure messed up Lincoln's nose and lips!

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Dan O'Connell

The ability to colorize is getting very good!

To complete your rhyme ...

"But just because you can, it doesn't mean you should."

[Pilot]

I play with this a years ago and results can be so interesting. As well the images become very new products, some of the archive make note that protect their material even if it is rework in this manner. I more prefer images in their original form, including of scratches

[edwest]

Right. As advances are made, we should be aware of what could be done with them. And some things should not be done.




Ed

[edwest]

Originally Posted by John Beaman

Thanks Ed. Very interesting.

The Gettysburg vets are Confederate and the one on the right is likely wearing a grey suit instead of brown.

The one of Lincoln at Sharpsburg (to us Southerners) is very interesting. If the penny designer did indeed use this as a base, he sure messed up Lincoln's nose and lips!

You're welcome, John. Part of the problem with the internet is instead of experts getting primary access to such technology, it ends up in the hands of amateurs as well. Amateurs + increasingly powerful technology usually ends up in false conclusions or associations, or personal opinions gradually morphing into "facts."



Best,
Ed

[ouidjat]

Originally Posted by edwest

You're welcome, John. Part of the problem with the internet is instead of experts getting primary access to such technology, it ends up in the hands of amateurs as well. Amateurs + increasingly powerful technology usually ends up in false conclusions or associations, or personal opinions gradually morphing into "facts."



Best,
Ed

Hello,

Just to be complete ... and fair:
Whatever the fields ... you can find Professional/experts turning bad or wrong informations into facts ... as well! Don't forget that, please.

Best regards, Franck.

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear All,

As Dan knows, when someone starts to colorize a photo, it gets my dander up. It's a guess as to what the actual colors should be. Perhaps it is based on general data where actual color photos exist, but that certainly can't be the case for all of the color profiles that now seem to be an "essential" part of a book. Frankly, I look at these as wasted pages. Yes, modelers may eat them up, but they are ignoring the likelihood that these are some artist's best guess. When multiple color profiles of some famous pilots are produced in different books, it is amusing to see the differences. And, even when a good black and white side view photo is offered, it is mind boggling that the artist's color profile fails to match the patterns seen. Guys, it is artistry, not necessarily fact.

If you colorize a photo and publish it, you are turning fiction into fact from which others will claim now we know what such and such actually looked like. How are you to distinguish between actual color photos and the fakes? You are creating history, not reporting it, and that is very dangerous.

Case in point. Norman Malayney got pretty peeved at people lifting his stuff off of the Internet and publishing it without getting any permission to do so. So, he pulled a rather nasty trick. He implanted false information on a website to see if he could definitively track someone doing this. And, sure enough, he caught a big fish. The author was furious that his work was now tainted and that tainting would likely be copied by other authors. Pandora's box was open and could never be closed. The same holds true for colorizing black and white photos.

Now, I do take exception to the purist that wants to keep a photo as it was printed and, if the negative or photo became scratched, so be it, as this is history and should remain inviolate. To which, I say, bs. Maybe that snap of the Wright Flyer taking off for the first time should follow this dictum. The photo, itself, is iconic. But, one must remember that very different prints can result from the same negative. In the wet process, the type of paper is very important. Just how long was the exposure from the enlarger? Did the photo processor leave the paper in the developer too long before fixing it? Were the chemicals fresh? Was the photo fully rinsed before drying? If you are talking original photos from the WW II era, then this is the process by which they were printed.

But, going back to the negative, itself, it may have been under or over exposed. Or the subject matter contains both very bright and very dark material. Until the advent of the Photoshop era, normal processing had its limitations. Ironically, though, a really high contrast photo may actually contain information not seeable by the human eye. Scanning such a photo and working it with Photoshop can bring out this detail, information that would otherwise remain lost. What is thus being provided is more information - factual information - and the effort to do so is well justified, in contrast to colorization or painting a mustache on a face when there was none to start with.

Working with a professional photographer, we've been enhancing photos for years, with superb results.

Regards,
Richard