Amazing historical photos 'colourised'

[dirtychinchilla]

Excellent link.

How Jayne Mansfield didn't fall out of that dress I don't know

She's not far off. Very nice!

 

[Gambisk]

Great link, thanks for sharing

 

[Maccapacca]

That looks like a proper fight

 

[Casdawer]

Awesome pics, thanks!

 

[Ransom]

There a great set, thanks

 

[Greboth]

Do they run these through some colour picking software that chooses the most likely based on light and tone or do they actually hand pick colours that please.

Is it possible to know the actual colour from the black and white images and processing methods.?

All very fascinating one of you geeks must know.

I like the everyday life ones, like the car crash and the ice girls. Real moments of the past.

Simple answer: No. More complicated answer: The colour will be 'random' and hand picked colour, there are 3 elements to colour: brightness (where it sits on the greyscale), hue (its colour: red, blue, yellow..) and saturation (it's vibrancy, is it pale or bright). A black a white photo only tells us the Brightness of the colour therefore the hue and saturation have to be guessed. Obviously for things like skin tone or a clear sky the colour is a very narrow choice. Some things like the advertising logo's in times square will be recorded in history too but certain other things an educated guess could be made i.e. a dark suit is more likely to be blue than green, even though they could have the same brightness. Other things will just have to be guessed for a colour that the person colouring the photo wants.

If you have photoshop the easy way to test this out it make a grey box, open up hue & saturation. As long as you only move the hue or saturation slide (leaving the brightness alone) all the colours you make would show up as the same grey in a B&W photo.

 

[Egon]

Stunning photos... Audrey Hepburn - wow!

 

[Orionaut]

Do they run these through some colour picking software that chooses the most likely based on light and tone or do they actually hand pick colours that please.

Is it possible to know the actual colour from the black and white images and processing methods.?

All very fascinating one of you geeks must know.

I like the everyday life ones, like the car crash and the ice girls. Real moments of the past.

IIRC, B&W film does have a degree of colour sensitivity (I was always told as a child that scenes with red in would come out better with B&W)

Using this and matching with "Known" reference points (Such as the Coca-Cola and other advertising hoardings) and I would imagine that digital processing could give a really rather good interpretation.

Quite possibly rather better than the "Colour" film of the day!

Spoiler

I do however have one small criticism. Not of the reproductions mind, which are supurb, But describing the Hindenburg as a "Blimp"! Oh the Humanity!

 

[Columbo]

Just brilliant.

 

[Feek]

Thank you for sharing that. I like the Audrey Hepburn picture

Audrey Hepburn, holy hnnnngggggggggg

You've only just realised that? She was always absolutely stunning!