I have a large number of ancient black and white photos I would like to colourise for a video project.
I have tried PhotosRevive which is rather hit and miss . . . sometimes good, sometimes not!
Have you got any favourite you can recommend that consistently produces good results?
I need a standalone app not an online one.
Mac mini, macOS 10.15
Hi Ian,
If you have Photoshop, have you tried the Colorizer Neural Filter? It's amazingly fast & easy to use. In Photoshop, go to Filters > Neural Filters. If you don't already have the Colorizer filter you can download it from there.
It does a great job with skintones and most fabrics & backgrounds. You can also touch up things with Levels, Curves & other tools if necessary.
I used to have to colorize everything by hand for clients. This filter would have saved an awful lot of time (most of the time). Does great on some images, but not so well on others.
This one was pretty good.
Original:
Colorize Neural filter as is:
Cleaned up:
What would have normally been at least 3-4 hours of hand colorizing the entire image took all of 15 minutes.
It can be done in Final Cut... but... you're probably not going to want to spend the time. I used Draw Mask, a coloring filter and several "layers" (seven actually). The coloring filter needed to use Color Mask or Shape Mask (maybe a magnetic mask??? I wouldn't know - haven't upgraded that far.) I can't say which coloring filter (it's mine and commercial...) so against forum rules. Anyway, since the coloring filter needs some kind of Effects Mask, the Draw Masks only have to be "close" - not obsessively exact... if you know what I mean... [I'm the one on the right -- about 60 years ago...LOL.]
Just a faded colour picture with the colours enhanced?
I didn't have the old black and white data, so I used a faded color photo.
What would it look like if you simply increased the Saturation?
It was difficult to restore the skin color just by increasing the saturation. I colored it by moving the round button (hue) in the center of the color wheel to orange, and I lowered the shadow contrast to emphasize black.
I'm always looking for the easy way out!
This process is similar to color grading. I think it will be easy if you are used to grading work and can use Photoshop.
Thanks but you are correct in that I want something automated.
I have done it manually with Photoshop about 20 years ago.
Being of a slightly careful person with cash, I photographed my whole wedding back in 1976 with a 35mm camera and TLR loaded with monochrome film together with my Super8 cine camera. For the group shots I used a tripod and delayed action.
All this amused (?) the guests.
Anyway around 20 years ago a visitor commented on a photo of the happy couple with parents, saying it must have been a long time ago (because of lack of colour!)
This spurred me on and very painstakingly, using colour photos guests had taken, I hand coloured said photo, printed it and placed it on display.
However, I was not tempted to do the same with several hundred other photos.
The app I mentioned originally can do a magnificent job in around 10 seconds and can work its way automatically through a folder of pictures.
Sometimes the results are brilliant but on other occasions you get colour aberrations, which can be reduced manually but rather defeat the object.
Thanks Martin and Kurt but I stopped giving money to Adobe several years ago!
Your original photo Kurt is an ideal one for AI colourising as its subject matter is bold and devoid of fussy extraneous detail whilst the image is sharp and with a good tonal range.
Under those circumstances the cheap PhotosRevive seems to do almost as good a job in 15 seconds.
Most of the photos I'm dealing with are either over 100 years old and rather faded or amateur ones riddled with lack of sharpness/quality and with fussy images.
This one I took of my grandparents on our lawn in 1961 is not too bad technically and PhotosRevive gave a pleasing and believable effect in its customary 15 seconds.
Didn't grandparents look old in those days? They are years younger than my wife and me!
Your original photo Kurt is an ideal one for AI colourising as its subject matter is bold and devoid of fussy extraneous detail whilst the image is sharp and with a good tonal range.
Exactly. Which is what I meant by, Does great on some images, but not so well on others. That was a pretty simple image, so it did fairly well. But on a more complex image, the filter fails rather badly. As in, what's with all of the salmon red all over the place?
Maybe I was crying because I knew he was using monochrome plates. 😢
Obviously I was brought up on B/W pictures which at the time were "normal".
However, we usually see the world in colour so monochrome is unnatural and I prefer even a hint of colour to none at all as it adds realism.
Take as an example the old WW1 footage which looks ancient and of a different time or world. The moment a splash of pink or brown colours the skin and khaki the clothing, the movies pop into life and you are looking at "real" people.
The colours don't need to be accurate, they just have to be believable. Was that clothing blue, green or beige . . . it doesn't matter as (in most cases) it certainly wasn't black and white.
Kurt: Are you sure the airmen hadn't simply been a bit careless with what they put in the washing machine?
Yep, I agree it rather ruins the effect so if that happens with PS I may as well stick with PhotosRevive.
When I asked the question I was hoping we had progressed a bit further with AI but it looks as though we are stuck at the moment.
I love black and white photos. They make you focus on different things than color photos. I like to take photos of interesting architectural features. I very often filter them to B&W.
I love the old family black and white family photos as well. And you were a cute toddler!
The pictures I take of flowers are in color.
Lawrence Finch wrote:
Obligatory Calvin & Hobbes:
+1 👍 My son and I are photographers and we pass this strip back & forth to each other every now & then. We have even had some fun over it with my grandsons. I have an original copy from when it was first published in the Sunday comics back in the dark ages. Priceless logic. So Dad.
I appreciate that monochrome can be used for artistic reasons but the photos I have in mind are purely records of family members not intending to express emotions or artistry . . . just to show what Uncle Fred looked like, nothing delving deeply into his soul.
To show I do appreciate black and white here are 2 videos I made last year . . . well actually they are just one video displayed in colour and then black and white as I thought the lack of colour might emphasise the emotion of the subject matter.
That's because in this case the colour is not intended to be realistic.
I used lots of colour correction in an attempt to give it an atmospheric, archaic and filmic look (even though it involved a mobile phone!) and the dreamlike feeling was intended to create an "other-worldliness".
The short transitional sequence between the scenes of the girl and the funeral was intended to convey a sensation of the drifting and passing of her life.
All in all it's guaranteed to cheer up any dull party!
I'm the one on the right -- about 60 years ago.
It's amazing to see a cute boy with missing teeth brought back to life in vivid colors!
Me 80 years ago . . .
Apparently I didn't like the photographer and they couldn't stop me crying!
Me 80 years ago . . .
Wow!
For the color wheel, I used multiple shape masks and color masks. Color correction was done for me (3 years old) and my mother.
Best colouriser for black and white photos?
