How obsessive artists colorize old photos
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- čas přidán 29. 05. 2017
- Photo colorization artists use a combination of research, physics, and technology to digitally reconstruct history's black and white record.
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Artist links:
Jordan Lloyd (@jordanjlloydhq): dynamichrome.com/
Mads Madsen (@Madsmadsench): www.colorized-history.com/
Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2): www.marinamaral.com/
Dana Keller (@HistoryInColor): www.danarkeller.com/
Patty Allison (@imbuedwithhues): imbuedwithhues.wordpress.com/
The Paper Time Machine: unbound.com/books/paper-time-...
Photo colorization isn’t just coloring within the lines - it requires meticulous research to make sure that every detail is historically accurate. The color of military uniforms, signs, vehicles, and world fashion spanning decades needs to be accounted for before even opening digital software like Photoshop. That means digging through sources like diaries, government records, old advertisements, and even consulting historical experts to get the colors right.
But even after the arduous research, restoration, and blending of color, the image still isn’t finished. In order to achieve true photorealism, the physics of how light works in the atmosphere needs to be taken into account. Colors look different depending on the lighting conditions when the photo was taken, so artists rely on shadows and the location of light to make an educated guess about the time of day in a black-and-white photo.
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You can find more photos on the artists' pages. Check them out:
Jordan Lloyd (@jordanjlloydhq): dynamichrome.com/
Mads Madsen (@Madsmadsench): www.colorized-history.com/
Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2): www.marinamaral.com/
Dana Keller (@HistoryInColor): www.danarkeller.com/
Patty Allison (@imbuedwithhues): imbuedwithhues.wordpress.com/
The Paper Time Machine: unbound.com/books/paper-time-machine
and look this... i think is the best restorer of photos JM EDICIONES
facebook.com/JmEdiciones1/
wow ty, is really good this guy JM EDICIONES
El cerebro
No mention of Sanna Dullaway?
I'm not a big fan of Vox or it's politics, but I deeply appreciate this video and the people in it. Thanks Vox.
Suddenly past doesn't seem so long ago.
Exactly, and it actually is not. i bet we would be mindblown if cameras were present earlier
In future, our grandchildren would make 360° VR photos from the photos we take today, and gift them on our 90th bday.
So make sure you take good photos 😄
the 1800s was only 2 or 3 generations away
Umm, Actually it seems the same.
it never was
The critics are ridiculous. This is truly incredible
Mina F yeah true
Mina F yes
Mina F They do have a bit of a point though. One of the things that makes the photos what they are is the color. You can't rewrite shakespear in modern english because it deminishes (to a point) the oringinal works. I don't think people should stop colouring photos but they shouldn't replace them.
Yeah, dipshit, they literally had a minute or so talking about what you just said. Did you not hear the guy say "They're not meant to replace the original, but to be a supplement"? Colorized photos allow us to feel a real connection with the people and events taking placing in old, musty photos and make them seem closer to our lives. It's not the earth that's changed so drastically, it's technology. By seeing Lincoln or Thomas Edison in real color, they suddenly feel real and alive and not like a distant, dead photograph.
Brendan Berney K bud I am just saying the critics have a point, because some people might try to get colorized version of historical events as the norm. Bashing it for just adding color is ridiculous, and come on insulting someone because they have an opinion.
How is this messing up history? The world has always been lived in color
Because its not 100% accurate the colors . They didn't know what color had the original photo only they do a close guess . For example if they recolor a parrot they will put the most common colors of his species .
panosveto so you’d rather there just be no color than have some of the colors be slightly wrong?
True
@@panosveto5729 I tried it. I transferred a picture of my grandma in a sweater she gave me. The sweater was green. It worked! The black and white photo of my grandma in the green sweater was accurate
What? Didn't you know colors were invented in the 20th century??
I’ve colorized some photos myself, and being honest, the hardest part wasn’t the colorizing itself, but it was finding the accurate colors for stuff.
Yeah. I mean, you can't get a lotta data from black and white photos. In my opinion, finding the colors for the Roman statues or anything like that, is easier because you can always just check it out using infrared or something.
@@praneelgogoi7769 can you elaborate please?
Agreed! There's a lot of research behind these colonization, such as finding out what color the uniforms were in WW2 for the French, accurate skin tones from actual colored photos taken at a later time when the tech was available, etc..
@@praneelgogoi7769 you know that Zones of Color exist right? Professional photographers/restorers and archivists know about the Grey zone of color.. It's supposed to be a guide into what gray color represents.. Of course it's not 100% for that you needed some technology
spot on! research, research, research
Seeing the transition from black and white images to their colourised counterparts is really interesting.
GarethPW I agree but the old souls who believe anything made should be untouched (these are people who hate science) have a huge-ass problem.
Junko Enoshima I'm sorry but that's completely wrong. They don't hate science, they love tradition.
+Junko Enoshima You really spoke my mind. I really hate those people. It's not the original black and white images get lost, they're just being digitally copied and the copies get touched for the better of mankind
+nicholasvsjesse I love tradition too, but does that mean I should try to forbid people from reviving and the past and making it clearer? As long as the original black and white versions of the pictures will be carefully preserved after their colorized versions are made, I think colorization of the past is actually a really good thing
I'd like to point out that the actual process takes far longer than can be shown in a few seconds, even if sped up. In this video, they essentially placed the black and white version over the colourised image, then rubbed away at it to reveal the bottom layer.
I feel like they should start showing colored historical photos in schools. Just watching how the colors came gave it life in my opinion, it made me actually feel these were actual people, (they were of course but you know what I mean) not some history page. It might insight people to care more about the past to see them as someone who you could pass by on the street, and even be friends with.
YES
Preach it my human friend, i too feel like it would at least trigger some sort of interest for the next generation about history. We need a new perspective of view, and thanks to that artist for making it one step closer to succeded.
Agree
A very good idea. Colors add emotion and importance to people, they create a better contrast between them and their environment. You can't "overlook" them, every face comes to life. And if you are emotional interested in someone, you will more likely remember what happened to them. It would really be an entirely different experience if history books were being colorized.
@Constantine Pimentel can we colorized a video?
In future, our grandchildren would make 360° VR photos from the photos we take today, and gift them on our 90th bday.
So make sure you take good photos 😄
NoobPerson305 well of course that’s to assume we’d have some sort of suitable technology for that by then lol. And if not, we already have technology that lets us view 360 photos/videos on youtube or through virtual reality.
Or see us in hologram. I think that's a good possibility
i would love to see my selfies made with colour again and I wonder how they will figure out the colour of the filters I use
Please unborn grandkids, don't.
yessir
I feel like coloring these images gives them more of an impact.
ok
I'm left dumbfounded... through these alterations you can really grasp that these things have actually happened idk how to explain it
Speechless.
Irene Kat
Yeah, I feel the same way. There's a disconnection between us and black and white photos. Funnily enough, it's like those are the paintings and the colorized ones are "real".
Completely agreed. If I see a black and white photo I think of a time that we're not connected to in history. Just blobs of shadows and light, and like they aren't real scenes or people. When color is brought to them, it kind of amazes me. I could see a black and white picture of an alleyway and think "ok, neat" and then when I see it colorized it's like "wow, look at all those details. look at the different colors of graffiti, and those chalk marks on the floor. this was a "real" place."
I don't recognize as much when it's black and white; I don't see a person that was alive at the time, I see someone that's long dead, boring, strict, and formal. Colorizing makes it look like this was a real moment in time, and you notice the life in people and scenery way more than you could have. (even though it was a real moment anyways)
Julianna Tea i had the reverse effect when watching schindlers list, because it was shot in black in white i thought it seemed more real and like it was actually shot during the ww2. When i watch recent WW2 movies that are in colour they seem al little off, i guess because every picture from WW 2 is taken in black and white. But these colourized photos have the same effect on me as you describe, its crazy really :).
joost Houterman that's exactly why
coloring the photos gives us a way to relate to the photo more, reminds us that the world is seen in color, not black and white
knowing how much work/research that goes into them makes these colored photos even more amazing
i.ytimg.com/vi/QECNON-8kn0/maxresdefault.jpg
Johnson Li (ME) lol
now make them in 3D
I see the world in colour, yet, you're still in black and white...
We do see in colour, but shooting in black and white is often the right choice. I am a photographer who mainly shoots in black and white, because colour can be a distraction. I want the viewer to focus on the emotion of the picture and often black and white is perfect for that.
I think the difference is most of these were shot in black and white because that was the only (or cheapest) option available. It wasn't necessarily an artistic choice but a necessity. I'm sure had the photographers had the option to, they would have shot in colour.
I don't get why people would push-back against this. This is amazing, it make all of those capture moment in history filled with life.
That picture of Charlie Chaplin meeting Helen Keller is just beautiful ♥️
k
@@ye7562 ?
just thru this video i learned about her.
Agreed man!
yeeee
I think, for me at least, it's the fact that the colourization makes history feel a lot less old and the realization that these photos were captured in our world and not in a distant time. plus, we feel like we understand what the moment of that photo was like, what did WWII look like to a regular soldier or, what did the clothing styles look like in the 1800s, what colours were popular, what materials were used, etc. One feels connected with history. No longer does your grandparents story feel so distant.
why should It feel distant? our grandchildren won't and maybe that's for the better
Yes!!
@@idontcaresir So then they can forget about the past and re-do the same mistakes we've done?
@@hanjizoe2648
Forget the past? How its not showing the true past and how it truely looked.
Connecting the past to present is how we stop repeating those mistakes.
Realizing the past mistakes made us who we are.
1400th like.
Vox - the buzzfeed that's actually good.
nah, Vox is nothing like buzzfeed. Vox mainly informs, buzzfeed solely entertains. Go search for the channel CUT if you want to watch an actual good buzzfeed.
I've seen this comment a million times
Jon Robin San Diego they're actually quite different. Buzzfeed has really low-brow entertainment and also bizarrely decent news reporting. Vox doesn't do original reporting on news for the most part, they tend to either do their own analysis and opinions on politics (which is usually left leaning) and then they do these mini documentaries.
Even comparing Vox to Buzzfeed is disrespectful in so many ways lol
No one likes buzzfeed.
Knowing how much work these artists put into colorizing these photos made me feel blessed to be able to look at them for free
0:37 It's ironic how his own photos aren't being colorized
Lol he should start colorizing his own photos
That's what I thought😂
@M G All the photos that are being colorized by these artists were taken in black and white.
Don't see the point of them being untouched. Why? Cause it's all digital, the original is preserved!! Stupid argument imo
agreed
Yes! And plus, is art in its own way!
I was just thinking this. The argument literally makes no sense. Some people just try to look for anything to get bothered about 🙄
is not just about adding color to a picture. its about the meaning behind it, changing history as in the video says you get a different feeling from a colored perspective. what they meant by untouched is not miss lead people, the real photos, they dont want that in 500 years museum show a picture with colors without people knowing it was artificially alterated they can be really close to what it would be an actual photo with color but we'll never know and you can go showing an original black and white photo in color just basically change history. nobody is against it, its more of a reminder for people in the future to know that they are not "100%" real.
for instance the popular "painting/photo" of Jesus, to this day people believe with their soul that this person in the picture is what Jesus looked like but the reality is nowhere near. they were mislead from generations before.
I hope this explains it to you, sorry for my broken english.
@@VFrozzen dont act like it was a artists choice to shoot in black and White.
The people who think it should be untouched don't have to look at the colourised versions, it's not like all the sudden the black and white originals disappear, they're still there so stop sulking about it. There's just people in this world who want to see the life before them the way those people would have wanted us to see them as.
And as he mentioned , it is important to know that the colorized photos are just supplements to the original photos.
I mean even if the originals did vanish they can always make the colour photo's black and white again. But that scenario is very unlikely.
What about people who paint colour paintings, photorealistically from old photos?, It's no different, If you don't like the colour images , don't look at them...JUST DONT..
I agree
To learn something new, you need to sacrifice your ignorance. I guess people preferring black and white don't want to see the colored versions, to keep their unaffected interpretations of the original photos. I guess they're scared.
People are so weird. They always try find something to be complained about.
-The original photo is preserved because this is digital.
-You said that it ruins the historical value of it. What historical value black and white photos supposed to serve? That it's old?
-Don't be a negative nanny. Sure it might change people's prespective, but see the other side of the coin. People can appreciate past. Colors and culture can be learned. The feeling of connection is gained.
Why are you so afraid of change? You can't stop change. You can either walk with it or being crushed by it. Your choice.
Karens...
This would be a similar argument like "you should never try to reconstruct how the ancient greeks actually painted their statues, we only KNOW them as white and bleached out, that is how history should always stay... but in many cases the photographer would have loved to take color photographs if only he could have made them as the film did not yet exist...
Those haters probably couldnt afford colour cameras or palets back then
This is just like people against art restoration. Like sure the artist definitely wanted you to have to peer through all the yellowed varnish, damage, and overpaint in order to sort of see the moment they captured.
Restoration and coloration of these images is what makes us able to relate to and better see these moment in time that they were attempting to capture. The world is a vibrant and colorful place so why not let people view them in a more accurate way.
it's amazing how so many of the colourized photos suddenly made me laugh. it just tore down a wall and gave it a sense of intimacy, like someone could have taken a photo just like this today using their phone. It makes these photos more special because it makes the scenes they show less "special" and "historic" and more like a casual picture from a distant time
I'd like them to see re-color a old moive
that would take AGES
Joseph Stalin well there is this one greek movie (that is pretty famous here in Greece) from the 60' that has been colorized. I would say it took some year but not many
I got good news for you bub
Dad’s army has a special recoloured episode that I watched recently at my grans. She loved seeing it!
Mughal-e-azam is an Indian movie that was recolored. Granted some scenes were originally filmed in color but the majority of the 3 hours of film is in black and white.
This is incredible. I really love the transitions from monochrome to colour. It definitely brings in more life and character to these moments. Its pretty breathtaking.
Jav Tiss oo
You are breathtaking.
@@Kasztaran haha about to type that
This is breathtaking. It feels like you can actually go to these moments in history and it feels like these historical events actually happened and that they dont feel to far away in time from us.
As a colorizer I'm very thankful that you made a video about our craft!
I'd never thought these photos would look so different to me when colourised. I was mindblown by the transitions between the black and white originals and the colorised pics.
honestly, abraham lincoln colorized looks so fake to me lol
"It's not a substitute, it's a supplement"
Yeah, I do agree on that, sure we can't replace the original with a colourised one, since the original really reflected on what and how the year the event was taken.
Yes, that too. But, most of the historic docs like the pictures mentioned are already digitised and designed for public use...
+Ikkaru Risan We can put on some glasses and get two keyboards along with some pop-up windows and then we can use our haxxor skills to remove the pictures from ze interwebz
The difference is that by seeing a BnW photography, we know that it is not the reality, but a medium. Once you colorize something, you sort of assure that it was close to that color. And no matter what, that will sink in the common representation of an era, influence it. That's how some representations become slowly an evidence, without anybody questionning it. And that's how you create false knowledge.
1:39 I'm really not used to see him so young
Sounds simple right?
“Yea, it’s a shitload of work”
@@Politicalmeme2 is this a joke?
Was showing this in my history class and didn’t watch it the full video and the teacher wasn’t too happy with the swearing hahaha
Its technically simple . but to figure out the perfect colors and aura of the photo thats what hard about it . there's a ton of youtube tutorials to this . one time i've spend 40 hours on a photo .
Mr. Trashmouth.
@@joeyjamison5772 ?
1:12 But adding color to black and white photos isn't *n-*
haha finally someone commented on tha, I was about to comment that.
@Mango Closed captioning it says "new"
i though it was my speaker glitching xD
he actually said new but ew part is hardly heard xD
Bruh, That registered in my mind as *"New"* and I didn't notice that...
Great work sir... You colorized 3 old photographs for my nephew in Texas, that he gifted me during his wedding ceremony. Two old pictures of my parents and my dad with his B17 bomber and crew circa 1942... These are the best gifts I have ever received. Thank you!
That's so awesome.
i loved every single image, it really does make me feel like i've seen someone like them on the street or something... i hope they keep doing it and uploading images. i love it!!!!
0:24 love this one , everyone kinda forgets how Indians were forced to join the British army to fight their war
Yeah
Jazzy I mean not really, they where members of the British empire they weren’t forced any more than the british citizens where
@@harleyokeefe5193 as our empires got devided why don't they give back what they stole from us
still, the native Brits outnumbered them in many theaters of war
@Rollo Larson oh yea ? Like the africans did from the colonizers ? Like the natives did from the colonizers? And every other country in the world which happens to be a "third world" *now* because of it ? The thing is India was rich in poetry art, technology and civilization unlike Victorian England, all they did was steal the riches of India like the Kohinoor diamond which is still in British museum btw , put it in their treasury and boast about their royalty and make their kids in schools skip the cruel actions of the colonizers so they'll not question their past unlike Germany does and have people like you think they GAVE Indians advantages while killing them and torturing them and stripping them of their identities. I don't blame you though but know the nuance of it bc you're probably not Indian or from a 3rd world country
I've wondered how they did this, I always assumed it would be difficult but I never realized that it is, and people do it anyway. And I'm astounded by how it changes things; in museums I've seen color paintings of ordinary-looking people from centuries ago, but I never realized how much black-and-white photographs distance themselves from the present.
It's not that difficult, it's merely meticulous. And if you have the eye for it you can tell they're colorized, and not the real thing.
If you're interested, check my channel, I'm adding timelapse of picture (it's very raw for now but I'll improve quality of video)
Ed Gepixel It is VERY difficult. The amount of scrutiny that you have to work with is tremendous. I know no one that considers overly meticulous work not difficult work. I feel like those words are at least somewhat synonymous, you know what I mean??
It's so easy to do with photoshop that a retarded infant could do it. You literally just pick brush called Colorize or something and you fill in any color you want.
But if you do it that way it won’t look like the work we saw in the video, it’ll be a preschool art project gone wrong 😂😂😂
-nice kind calming voice- YEAH IT'S A SHITLOAD OF WORK!
I just came to comment cuz after a year and you got 1.3k likes but no comments :(
i felt that A LOT lol
Who else teared up realising that just colour made you relatable to these people who in the past were unreacheable 'objects'
the guy literally create a time machine and someone says he destroy history/art from the original photos.
Seeing these photographs in color are awesome! They're not replacing the originals but they're giving us a better perspective of that given time.
A picture taken in 1912 looks like it was taken in the 1980's it's insane!
Especially that one from the 30s with a man grilling meat, where you can see the same coca cola logo like today - it's just, past seems to blend with the present
Killkor fr bro an 1862 colorized photo looks like a 2002 photo
I was wondering how they did that. Didn’t realize there was so much research involved. Makes me appreciate the colored photos even more. Thanks.
This is so cool! Whenever I see old black and white photos, it’s like looking at a different world. It always felt so distant.
What I'd give to have a colored photo of my grandfather. My grandfather passed in 1957 when my mother was only 6 months and I really think this would be an amazing gift for my mother.
try searching online for photo restorers Im sure you'll find someone
If you have the picture, and you're able to upload it somehow, then will colorize it for you, and i'll do it for free 🎨🖌
Post a link and we can have a crack at it.
Very good idea
Omg this is a wonderful idea
wow what an incredible topic, I'm so glad for this channel, the amount of effort, time and twlent it takes to restore these photos is astounding, it's kinda like time travelling, amazing what just adding color can do
Truth it’s like they sent new cameras to the past!
Very twlented indeed
2 thousand likes but only two replies
Rarely had I seen such a dedicated and passionated photography artist. His ideas and intelligence are beyond words, and the coloured pictures are absolutely beautiful.
This is so beautiful, had a smile on my face the whole time. All these pictures just seem like normal people that you’d see, it shows them for what they truly are. amazing work.
Wow! The colorization really makes those time periods look more relatable. Incredible.
Yeah
They should definitely be colorized. The people who took the photos did so out of necessity, and would have used color photography if the tech existed, rather than those tedious contemporary methods to add it afterwards.
It reminds me of the recent discoveries about Greek and Roman marble sculptures being colored to reflect life. We've always striven for realism in our art, and color is essential to that.
Exactly. As the guy said, they were coloring photos in the past and even films too. Adding the color just shows what we miss out on, when viewing back and white photos and what that day really looked like and what clothes they wore etc
Honestly since I was young I thought the world back then was black and white.
Same
I’ve done this before as a little free time thing via an app lol, and I can tell you guys that what these guys are doing is extremely hard work (if you wanna do it good let alone perfect) There is so much more depth and different tones/colors in general on a single persons face, than what people realize. I’ve never been able to do it perfectly, mine always came out kinda plastic looking because I depended on a few colors, but that’s because I did it for fun wondering what black/white photos would look like in color. Probs to these guys
They should give these people photos taken present day that have been converted to black and white, let them colorize them, and then compare their colorized version to the original color photo to see hows accurate they got it lol
I'm sure that's part of the hiring process for people in this line of work as well as a god reference point. They mentioned having people to call that live and breathe these artifacts and historical moments, so I am sure there are artifacts leftover that can be photographed with modern cameras to help with color references.
well I'd be easier because they could easily find current references to everything in the image, but still interesting
I know it sounds dumb, bit when I imagine what it would have been like a long time ago, I see it in black and white
When I was a real young kid, maybe 5 or so I remember asking my grandma if people saw in black in white back then. That still makes me laugh.
EmHo I do too
Yea, its the only thing we can think of back then, we have only seen the past in Black and White, so our brain doesnt know how to construct it with colors, as we clearly never saw those colors.
we might be right tho. there isn't proof that the past wasn't in black and white.
I'm kidding btw.
EmHo You just need to start watching movies in the past with color
I find this absolutely facinating. I do appreciate the original photographs, but adding color to these images is chilling when you think about the world events some of the photographs are taken in. It makes you realize how not very distant they are to you as human
Color provides so much more detail. I can still look at a black and white picture and say wow, looks like this was taken just today. Color just adds more detail, sometimes reveals things such as discerning shadow from mud, dye from non dyed clothing, various types of metals, materials stand out.
It simply provides more detail.
The actual pictures are so amazing and mesmerizing. The coloring just adds that life to old and forgotten pictures. Im in awe
So you really can turn your childhood hobby of coloring books into a profession!
I also remember having the need to thoroughly analyse historic records and consult professionals to help finish coloring books.
Yeah slightly more complicated but sure bro
Like that compares to how complicated this job is.
The matter is this guy turns old pictures into realistic ones, only a true artist can do that. A simple colorization will look kind of duddle but achieving a realistic result would take a real knowledge of painting techniques, hours and even days.
Yes its called being a hipster.
The color really does create a connection between Me and the subject/period. More so than in black and white because that alone makes it feel "different" than me
it's so much easier to connect to history this way. i see one of these photos and it's like, oh my god, that's a person. a regular human being i could see on the street. i recognize the look on their face, i can relate to how they might be feeling, i can truly imagine what it would be like to have lived back then. it's so strange how such a little thing can make us realize that people have always been people.
Criticizing something like this is so stupid. There's nothing special about black-and-white pictures. They're just black-and-white because we hadn't figured out a way to take color ones. So making them color is not only cool, but it's also about making them timeless.
That's not true. Photographers had the ability to shoot in color since the early years of the 20th century. National Geographic published color photos taken from Autochrome plates, first commercially available in 1907. There is even an actual color Autochrome of Mark Twain! Kodachrome was introduced in the mid 1930s, and some of the most impressive color documentary photos were taking by the photographers of the Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information in the late 1930s and 1940s. Most of the photos shown being colorized in the video were taken when color WAS available, and at least some of the examples represent the choice of the respective photographers rather than limitations of technology.
The reason for that is not black-and-white vs. color, but analogue vs. digital, and falling prices per picture in general. Back then, you made your pictures count, and didn't a machine-gun-spread of photographs.
Color is cool yet your profile photo is in black and white, lol.
I tease. =)
*There is plenty special about black and white! The use of light and shadow to create a dynamic image was an elemental art form long after color film was available, and is to this day. Reference the work of Ansel Adams, or the film noir movement.*
*Black & white photography aren’t just pictures without color. It’s a separate discipline from color within the practice of photography, which focuses on a whole separate spectrum of elements of a subject. Come on people, think.*
@@mr.butterworth4216 , you are quite right. I'm surprised at the ignorance in some of these comments. I thought it was common knowledge that many professional photographers today use black and white for exactly the reasons you gave.
Unless theyre actually destroying the original images, let them do it! Its great to see both, the original and the what it may have looked like in colour
I love looking at colourized old photos, it's mindblowing to see and makes me feel like I just witnessed whatever it is I'm looking at.
"But adding colour to black and white photos isn';t nE-"
Isn't NEW
@@bulletsfordinner8307 knee
1:14 "Adding colors to black and white photos isn't n-"
Adding colours to black and white photos isn't new.
LMAAO
Aniket Mamoriya not what I heard
Rekt
Wait what? I don't get it
I'm an old photographer with an art history and history background. The colorizations in this video are phenomenally good. "Spent a month" on one image? That image will never become stale. The people in those images now have the option of appearing more alive. Altered? Sure. But the originals still exist, nothing is lost.
The complaints against this process are exactly the same as were those against colorizing old movies 25 years ago. The process of colorizing old movies was similar to what these artists are doing. Step one: make the best cleanest duplicate of the original film. Step Two: colorize. Colorized movies made then were a bit cheezy, often just a few colors. People who didn't know liked them, initially they seemed neat, but in about twenty minutes the low quality colorizing was awful. The real benefit of that process was Step One: restoration of the best possible closest to the original copy. I've seen a lot of old movies, really good prints are rare, often classic movies survived in multiple generation copies of terrible quality. (One example was Carl Dreyer's Joan of Arc with Danish subtitles--that's the only way we could see that movie.) What's really good about this otherwise cheezy colorizing was that technical problems like shutter stutter, the usually very subtle up and down vibration in many films, can be fixed when making the digital copy.
With these still images the more research these artists do as they colorize old photos the better the result, and the greater the contribution. What would be helpful would be footnotes, these colors are accurate because of these sources.... these colors are best guess.... What I really appreciated was how going from black and white to color the people in the photos became more-- not so much real--as recognizably like me and people I see everyday; exactly as they once had been. It does what history should always do, make it live again. What no one says about the digital world is that until the advent of digital capture, the colors available in different media were very limited. TV and film were connected to dyes and phosphors. I used to photograph art, oil paintings cannot be accurately reproduced with film. Oil paints included colors that were not recordable. Film was like watercolor. Reproduction was usually magazine 4 color. Most experienced photographers feel a bit sick looking at magazines, all we can see is all the colors that are not there.
WillN2Go1 I agree up until the part where you lost me... 😅
5:28 could you imagine how surreal it would be walking up to Lincoln 😂
To the people that aren't familiarized with Photshop and Image Manipulation, doing this isn't difficult, the important factor here is how they interpret the colors that will be put and how accurate or stylized they'll be.
Those guys have professional understanding of color and know where to get their references, this is what makes them impressive.
2:53 funniest thing that you could write on bombs.
There's a lot of Easter eggs in this photo.
Singlerainbow Back then they had no Wikipedia LOL.
(Those aren't bombs, they are cannon shells)
More precisely, artillery shells, (Look behind them)
TheEmeraldSkies I called them bombs because I know they explode. Didn't know the actual term for them.
Don't worry, at the first look i also thought they were bombs.
when I was little I thought the world was only black and white before like 1960 when someone invented color and then the world had color
OMG!!!! Same here!!!!!
TheNeonWhiteOne same
Is your name Calvin? Do you have a stuffed tiger named Hobbes?
thats oddly poetic
Me too!
This is amazing, history is brought to the depth it actually possess.
Thank you so much Vox for shining a light on colorizations! Glad to see my hobby getting some exposure!
wait but wasnt the world black and white in the past
shusshhh, don't tell them!
blackened white
joey stalin it wasn't black and white pshhhh. It was either white and gold or black and blue.
joey stalin your world perhaps
joey stalin hitler?
it's so silly that there is actually backlash against this.. it's like people's attachment to things is so strong that it makes them totally irrational lol. I could maybe see people getting upset if they were burning all the original photos in a big bonfire or something, but I don't think that's happened yet..
Yet....
i agrer.. as if the originals were replaced and deleted forever.
I love this history/design overlap, thank you for sharing!!
It honestly was amazing to see this because it really did make me grasp (I knew but couldn't picture it) that people looked the same way back when, just with different fashion.
Now completely colourise a black and white film
Tenebris Scarrow There are films that were completely colourised
Look at a film of Berlin filmed in 1914, it's absolutely beautiful. It's on CZcams.
There are many colorize black and white films.
Alright Satan lets hold on a minute 😂😂
Colorizing films is different because those are crafted by artists and their visual design is intrinsically linked to the medium they were made with. It was tried back in the 80s and there was a huge backlash. Go watch Citizen Kane or Night of the Hunter to see how different the visual language of black and white is from color.
who paused the video on every picture?
this video gives me a greate wallpaper folder :D i.imgur.com/OarSM3X.jpg
I love the colourised version! Brings it to life and helps see the image in a different light.
I do this myself, and it's really quite fun. It's like a coloring book, except you get to interact with your favorite historical figures! I understand the historians who argue against it, but if you do your research and don't make a regular door bright pink or something, I don't see a problem. The original black and white is still there. The color photo merely adds another dimension to it.
i wish to become a historian when i become older, and i'm really defensive of history and its importance and i'm also a bit sentimental about time and mortality so it makes sense on how i would cling to history in such a way. but, anyways, these colorized photos astonish me. like, in a way i can't put to words. i try my best to get people to view history in a different light than they usually do and see each historical figure as a person-- just like us, but in a different time-- but when you look at these pictures its so in your face. they lived just like you. they laughed. they loved. it's amazing. what the hell-- i'm tearing up because of this tf. i just-- i love history, and i profoundly appreciate anyone who does these videos.
tyranny I feel the exact same way. I think these photos are a beautiful way to get people to realize that our historical figures were just... people.
It’s good to learn history in a young age like me.
I like fried crispy milk
The artist's are using modern technology...
*- Photoshop*
Can we just take a moment to appreciate how beautiful these people were?
I feel like this process would be particularly effective for WW1 remembrance. Since it was overshadowed by WW2 and written off as just a shitshow where soldiers were sent to be cut up by machine guns by incompetent generals, it is simply written off but looking at colourised photos really brings the whole conflict to life.
The only thing I think about is how many people are dead in each photo
Random Cat yeah or they can just be really old.
Respect for the quality of work involved!! :)
I had some work commissioned by Mr. Madsen a couple of years ago and could not believe the result I got back. Being able to see my great-grandmother I never met in color was amazing and made an incredible gift to a few of the older relatives.
I can barely color a piece of paper.
Honestly the work that these people do is amazing. Just the amount of time and effort it takes is insane. And the transition from the black and white to the colorized is mesmerizing.
AMK 347 Trust me. This guy in the video talking about how apparently difficult it is is definitely a high school drop out who is desperate to make enough money so tries to make it sound like what he does is amazing. When I was 14 in grade 8 I figured out how to do this stuff no problem and they’d look amazing like they were an actual colour photo. All you need to do is place the photo in an app/program and be able to edit it then grab the pen tool, select the colour you want and set the opacity somewhere from 5-50% depending on how thick the colours will need to be to stand out well and look legitimate. Way easier then it may look or may be said to be.
It's amazing how they bring history so seemingly close to us by colouring these images.
Amazing work, I remember the first time I saw one of this digital colored pictures, I was shocked of how "present" it looked. I'm a big lover of history, it was an amazing feeling.
Who pays artists like Jordan to do the hard work?
Michael Griffin The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They seem to pay for anything
Michael Griffin I overheard a dad tell his 10 y.o. daughter to be realistic , "there is no future in being an artist, no money to be made". After she told him she wants to be a artist when she grows up. A doctor, engineer or top manager at a corporation is what he demands she pursue.
Maybe companies want to use their coloured images for maybe a newspaper or book or something and then they pay them to put it in, so the more images they colour the higher the chances of them getting paid is. But that's just my theory...
justmejr315 but it's true
anything not into engineering, electronics and programming has no future, as they will eventually be substituted by AI.
now in this decade or even the next, but maybe in 30-40 years
Different you need people in various fields. The world doesn't work with just engineers and scientists.
I want a VOX sticker :(
me too
ME TOO
i want to put it into my laptop
same
aersen sammme
I think the skill these people have is incredible, and I too believe it really does shine a new light on history, suddenly it feels much more relatable and almost tangible. Great video.
Thank you everyone who works at Vox! This was fantastic.
They are stunningly beautiful. Really beautiful. The majority of 'colourised' pictures that you see, look like black and white pictures with a few colours added.
*Your pictures, Jordan, look like colour pictures.*
The thought and care put into restoration is great! I still love black and white photos, but this does an interesting thing psychologically which I love.
That man and his spot-on vocabulary to describe his thoughts. I definitely got down what he really tried to mean. It is mind-blowing.
Hey those dumb critics... i love the color
Critics are not dumb, they have their point of view and opinion. Nothing wrong with that.
*CRITICS ARE DUMB!!!*
@@superdave54811 Normaly I would agree but in this case? Nope criticizing making supplements to original photos (and doing it so carefully and with precision) thats just DUMB.
I was just looking at an article online about restored photos. All this came to my mind. So cool
This is a beautiful art and I appreciate work of those people who can bring those photos to life .
This is amazing. Truly makes the pictures feel a lot more real and relatable.
It really adds life to the photographs tho