I was getting to thinking about “restored” films and photographs (as well as a couple similar processes I’ll adress in the latter part of my post).
How do they colorize an old photo, I’ve never personally had a photo that needed color added but when I see photos people claim had color added look very much like the actual person should look. Do they find out things and then color it, or is there some process they can use on the print (or negatives?) of a normally B&W photo. Same goes with film/movies/whatever, I’ve seen some films “now restored with beautiful color.” Now it’s not out of the question to ink color a whole movie, I mean animators do it all the time (with various techniques), but it looks so natural in a fashion that doesn’t seem hand done frame by frame (or however) that it make sme wonder if theres an alternative technique that actually brings in the color that was there.
The “other” scenario is something like this (if you can’t stand the vid long enough substitute somethign equally trippy). If wikipedia is to be trusted they filmed it entirely in black and white and added in color later. Now that’s fine in a lot of parts, the surreal feeling fromt eh color is obviously artificial coloring, but the non-black and white humans (i.e. the singer) looks very natural which again leads me to believe they did some process.
So what’s going on, are the artists they use just THAT good at shading/picking correct looking colors etc or is there some process (computer, chemical or otherwise) to bring out colors that were “already there.”
At the simplest level, a black and white photo will also contain shades of gray, so that if you just put a solid color behind it, you’ve got some free shading. But it can still look better, so that’s where actual digital airbrushing skill comes in. If you’re just doing a still image, there are plenty of tutorials on the web; you just need some time and Photoshop. For film, I imagine that Ted Turner’s people used rudimentary computers to color one frame at a time, but now I know there’s software to speed the process (or go all the way, like Waking Life).
A lot of it is basic knowledge - grass is green, sky is blue, stop signs are red, etc. After that, the colorists can hope for cues like having it known that someone’s house is yellow, and so forth, and at a last resort, they make artistic guesses.
Legend Films does a great job of colourising films. Look through their site at their demos and it will show you how it’s done, how much guesswork is involved with colours (they source them from the original wardrobe or promotional images where possible), and how much work is involved.
It usually really is frame by frame, though there are ways to shortcut the rotoscoping required. For example, you can block in the blue of the sky as a rectangular shape, then paint over that block with the trees and people positioned on top. The edges don’t have to meet up, like in a painting, they can overlap opaquely in layers, making some parts of the work faster and easier.
Youtube comes up with “This video is not available in your country.” for me - first time I’ve ever seen that message. What is the name of the film you linked to?
Man, that still looks like crap. Better than earlier colorization, but still crappy. And that’s the best they can do?
Colorizing films always makes them look worse. No film has ever been improved by colorization. It’s never as good as real color and worse than real black and white.
I agree - it drains all the mood and texture out of the images.
First time I read that sentence, I thought there must be some counterexamples to such a baldly-stated universal. But I can’s think of a single one. Not one.
So far the discussion’s been about motion pictures, but the OP asked about photographs as well. Hand coloring of photo prints goes way back.
I’ve used the Marshall’s products to hand tint B&W prints. Marshalls The colors are transparent and lay on top of the print allowing the image and shading to show through. It helps to have some artistic talent, and I’m lacking there, but it was fun and I did turn out some prints that folks were pleased with. I guess they had low expectaions to start with. :dubious:
In todays digital world it’s not uncommon to start with a color image and reduce it to grey scale with a layer, then erase portions of the greyscale layer to allow some spot color to show through. An example would be a bridal portrait with the flowers in color and the rest B&W.
Here’s one that I did.
I’ve got some better ones with people as the main subject, that I can upload later.
I did this by hand, outlining each area and changing the hue. Doing this keeps the original shading. That means that I could outline all the red apples and change it to red and it doesn’t turn into one big red splotch. Even so, this probably still took me 6 or 7 hours over the course of a week. But you’ll see, I had to spend some time cleaning it up before I could even start.
The reason it usually looks bad, IMO, is because the technique just applies blobs of uniform hue onto objects - sure, there’s still shading, texture, gradation of lightness and sometimes saturation, but there’s no colour texture - the face of an actor in a colorized movie is assumed to be a uniform, flat hue. Objects in real life are blotchy and speckled in colour, not just light and dark.
Of course that’s harder to apply as an effect, because it would necessitate tracking the object and applying a 3D colour texture map to it.
That’s different. That’s taking a color photo and removing the color from all but one part. It’s VERY easy (and very impressive looking for how little work it takes), and actually when you teach yourself Photoshop or take a class it’s one of the first things you learn, right after selection techniques.
Part is as you indicate, but another part is that they’re putting colors atop something that already has shades to it. You can’t get the right color when you’re applying the pigment (or the electronic equivalent) to a constantly changing background. And it looks like the current state of the art still doesn’t have a large enough color palette to continue.
Actually, I though colorization died when the sales of the colorized version of Casablanca were way beyond pathetic (Roger Ebert said it sold under 500 copies). People who like the movies want to see them in the original state, and those who need color to make them want to watch are interested in more modern films.
It can work the other way, of course, and work quite well (The Man Who Wasn’t There was shot in color, but the black and white looks great).
As for photographs, I’ve seen good hand tinting as far back as 35 years ago for my senior portrait. But it’s a lot easier to do it when the image isn’t moving.
Some years ago I saw a colorized version of “Knute Rockne, All American”. The dramatic scenes looked as bad as any colorized movie, but the game footage–press-box shots which presumably were from real Notre Dame football games–actually looked better in colorization.
I was quite surprised by this, as I initially agreed that colorization always looks worse. But I can’t explain this apparent exception, and it has always stuck with me.
