[robgski]

IF you've seen Peter Jackson's documentary film "They Shall Not Grow Old " in theaters, you've probably been struck by how well the documentary takes the grainy black and white film and video, along with correcting the herky-jerky motion and silence of vintage motion pictures, and brings it into the modern era. This transformation of the images and addition of sound makes it much more real, more relatable to a modern audience accustomed to 4K video and Dolby 5.1.

I think that it suits "documentary" images, as opposed to artwork quite well. IMO, 100 years ago a photographer like Ansel Adams or Dorothea Lange or Thomas Edison would have used color to take an image if color film had been readily available. As it was, they used the medium that was available.


There are some BW stills and motion pictures that should not be colorized, IMO, some images would be diminished in color.

What's your opinion on adding proper color to old BW still or video? Any lessons-learned or tips for anyone undertaking such a task?

[sqrrl]

Sorta quoted from wikipedia - "In 1945 Dorothea Lange was invited by Ansel Adams to accept a position as faculty at the first fine art photography department at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA)"

Ansel Adams was shooting commercial work in colour at about the same time, he just reportedly felt the processing was restrictive to creativity. So yes, they both used colour film when it was available to them - given that Edison ran a movie studio for a time and he was an inventor, I'd be very surprised if he never got his hands on colour photography of some persuasion. By the way, colour tinting of black and white photographs goes back to at least the 1850's, probably the 1840's.

I had to learn colour retouching at school, personally I found it really tedious, but I have no problems with other people doing it - I would be very leery of people colorising famous black and white photos - it's not how they were meant to be seen and it sort of undermines the intentions of the original photographers.

[ramseybuckeye]

First of all how can colorizing be accurate unless someone was there and wrote down what every color was. A photographer like Matthew Brady did such powerful work it does not need to be colorized. My opinion is that colorizing trivializes the work. History should never be changed because of someone’s opinion, and to me these old photos are certainly history.

I think the color tinting of photos by the photographer or his assistants was fine because they intended to do that.

[StarTroop]

First of all how can colorizing be accurate unless someone was there and wrote down what every color was. A photographer like Matthew Brady did such powerful work it does not need to be colorized. My opinion is that colorizing trivializes the work. History should never be changed because of someone’s opinion, and to me these old photos are certainly history.

I think the color tinting of photos by the photographer or his assistants was fine because they intended to do that.

Ramsey, in the case of They Shall Not Grow Old, the purpose of the restorations was to provide context and perspective to modern generations who misinterpret black & white photography as "ancient history".

For fine art, clearly there is no reason to recolour black and white photographs because it destroys the artist's intent when they originally created the image with the palette in mind.

However, with historical documentarian photography (particularly war footage), artistic expression was probably not the focus of the photographer, and black and white film was likely not a choice of creativity as much as a practical necessity. Colourising and restoring this footage can be a valuable tool to provide education to future generations, so that history is not forgotten or trivialised, as the title of the film suggests. For this film in particular, Peter Jackson and his team have been using actual WW1 artifacts like uniforms and weapons, as reference to recreate the appearance and sound of the war as accurately as possible, it truly was an immense undertaking.

Of course, for archival purposes the original black and white negatives should be preserved and shared as well, but it isn't as effective at making the time period seem connected to our current reality.

[swanlefitte]

I rarely like what I see but why not. Its not destroying the original. What is wrong with Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q ( mona lisa with a moustache) In movies and literature reinterpretation is common. And what's wrong with another Frankenstein movie? Which was a book anyway.
And Ansel prints are all done different from the same negative.

[Paul the Sunman]

I'm all for including emojis in Shakespeare's sonnets. If they had have been around at the time, I'm sure he would have used them.

[acoufap]

If I remember right, colorizing old movies like Laurel & Hardy was made to continue copyright on the old stuff. I think I also read that Ansel Adams‘ Color Photographs weren‘t that much successful.

There will always be reasons why we decide to choose either color or back & white - practical, commercial and/or artistical reasons.

„Restoring“ black & white to color means going from a greytone (1D) to a 3D model, by example HSL (hue, saturation, lightness). Hue and saturation only can be estimates for each pixel of an image. So even doing it for documentation reasons the representation can only be a strong estimate.

The most reliable information in a color restored image seems to me the structural / texture information that B&W image already delivers.

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Last edited by acoufap; 01-20-2019 at 02:53 AM.

[ChrisPlatt]

In the 1980's technology became available to more easily colorize old movies.
Many older films were colorized and re-released, often shown on television.

Apparently some of the work was done overseas.
In the 1954 film Suddenly Frank Sinatra was given brown eyes.

Chris

[gaweidert]

Old saying from when I was a student at Rochester Institute of Technology a half century ago. If you can't make it good make it big. If you can't make it big, make it color.

I am not a big fan of most colorized movies I have seen. What Peter Jackson has done is in my opinion the rare exception to the rule and sets a new standard for those who want to follow. Back in the 1990's Kodak and Fuji developed a B&W film that could be processed in color chemistry. The film became quite popular in Japan where the kids thought it was a whole new cool way to take pictures.

[E-man]

I haven't yet seen They Shall Not Grow Old but I look forward to doing so. The clips I've watched online are amazing, not only showing the true potential of the technology but demonstrating its appropriate use. But like anything else, just because one can do something doesn't mean it should be done in all cases. Many photographers and film directors optimize their images to take maximum advantage of the monochromatic medium. Colorizing such still or moving images would indeed have the potential to compromise their artistic integrity, especially when it is done sloppily and with a severely limited color palate as it often was in the '80s. I remember watching a colorized version of It's a Wonderful Life on TV back in the late '80s and after about ten minutes, I had to get up and turn the color saturation all the way down on the TV set. It made me respect what Orson Welles is reported to have said regarding Citizen Kane shortly before his passing: "Don't let Ted Turner near my masterpiece with his crayons!" And he was exactly right, not only about that movie but also his film noir classic, The Third Man, which makes heavy use contrast and shadow to set the mood. Any attempt to inject color into either of those films, which were never meant to have it, would absolutely ruin them. By the same token, could you imagine the original Twilight Zone in color? Black and white is part of what makes these things work.

[thazooo]

IF you've seen Peter Jackson's documentary film "They Shall Not Grow Old " in theaters, you've probably been struck by how well the documentary takes the grainy black and white film and video, along with correcting the herky-jerky motion and silence of vintage motion pictures, and brings it into the modern era. This transformation of the images and addition of sound makes it much more real, more relatable to a modern audience accustomed to 4K video and Dolby 5.1.

I think that it suits "documentary" images, as opposed to artwork quite well. IMO, 100 years ago a photographer like Ansel Adams or Dorothea Lange or Thomas Edison would have used color to take an image if color film had been readily available. As it was, they used the medium that was available.


There are some BW stills and motion pictures that should not be colorized, IMO, some images would be diminished in color.

What's your opinion on adding proper color to old BW still or video? Any lessons-learned or tips for anyone undertaking such a task?

For the most part leave well enough alone. From what I've seen the colors are Off.
One colorization technique that I thought was unique was the Colorizing of Portraits. From around 1950ish, B&W portraits where given a hint of color.
More transparent that movie colorization, attractive and a bit of an Art Form. I've seen several that my Mother did and they're pretty cool.

[wstruth]

I agree with E-man about "Its a Wonderful Life" and most B &W films for that matter. My feeling is that even if B&W film or print was the only medium available at the time then the artist was intentionally trying to work the medium to their advantage. Kind of like the difference how an artist would be making a block print or an oil painting.

Anyway while that holds true for art, I also think colorization is valid for documentary or personal images or film, since I agree with Rob's original point there. I look through my mom's and dad's old snapshots and wonder what their world looked like in color.

[follansbee]

Personally I do the opposite ….. take my old color photos or other old photos of interest to me ….. scan them and complete a b&w conversion.
I also prefer to see old films in their intended b&w version.

[swanlefitte]

Ever watch a cinescape movie on PAL or NTSC tv? 2/3rds of the picture is cropped. Speilberg and Scorsese hated it but much of the public prefer it to letterboxing. Chances are most people enjoyed viewing many cropped movies and didn't even know.

[StiffLegged]

That reminds me:–