How obsessive artists colorize old photos
Photo colorization artists use a combination of research, physics, and technology to digitally reconstruct history’s black and white record.
Help us make more ambitious videos by joining the Vox Video Lab. It gets you exclusive perks, like livestream Q&As with all the Vox creators, a badge that levels up over time, and video extras bringing you closer to our work! Learn more at
Artist links:
Jordan Lloyd (@jordanjlloydhq):
Mads Madsen (@Madsmadsench):
Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2):
Dana Keller (@HistoryInColor):
Patty Allison (@imbuedwithhues):
The Paper Time Machine:
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.
Subscribe to our channel!
Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what’s really driving the events in the headlines. Check out to get up to speed on everything from Kurdistan to the Kim Kardashian app.
Check out our full video catalog:
Follow Vox on Twitter:
Or on Facebook:
You can find more photos on the artists' pages. Check them out:
Jordan Lloyd (@jordanjlloydhq): http://dynamichrome.com/
Mads Madsen (@Madsmadsench): http://www.colorized-history.com/
Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2): http://www.marinamaral.com/
Dana Keller (@HistoryInColor): http://www.danarkeller.com/
Patty Allison (@imbuedwithhues): https://imbuedwithhues.wordpress.com/
The Paper Time Machine: https://unbound.com/books/paper-time-machine
I'm continually astounded by people who need color to relate to a photo's subject.
One of the best YouTube channels
wow an interesting video by vox.. now that's strange
You know black and white photos are more powerful than colourised ones because they can say the n-word
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.
This is very enlightening. Who would've thought simply adding color to pictures would make such a difference…
It has always seem to me that black and white photography differs a lot from modern photography. Until they colored them.
ghost of the person "IDIOT THATS NOT THE RIGHT EYE COLOUR I HAD!"
Google is developing software so that when you point your camera to a black and white image, it'll colorize it.
For more detailed info please visit on the given link
https://www.quora.com/When-old-pictures-are-colorized-how-do-they-know-decide-which-colours-to-use/answer/JJ-Lloyd-1?ch=10&share=5fdf2191&srid=h5f8B
That is why i love images
the laplander looks so hipster
That’s pretty freaking amazing if you ask me
6:44 John F Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy getting married:)
So basically this is one of the advantages of using AI, where you just deliver the image and it processes it with all the data it has collected. Im pro AI rn
The guy could be a little bit more polite and show some respect to his audience by acting more professionally and not swearing
I mean, I'm sure if they could have taken the pictures in color, they would have.
That's so beautiful and looks fantastic!
Amazing…. The colors really erase the distance between us and those people living in the past. They look more humane, reachable, and relatable. Not gloomy, sad, and horror-like anymore.
People 100s of years from now are lucky they can look into the their past and our present with so much detail
the old eiffel tower looks brilliant
This is amazing!!
I'm a part-time movie colorizer.
As long as they aren't coloring on the originals I don't care in fact I like it it turns those photos into something much more real feeling
This blows my mind.!!!!!!!!
Very good work, this if nothing else, helps a mental relation to the photography. Black and white has always thrown a degree of indifference at those attempting to percieve the photo's as realistic.
Thank you.
The Thomas Edison one I almost didn’t believe. It was beautiful
This freakin' awesome!
This was my dad's job before WWII. They would take a print that people brought into the photo lab, make a negative and then a new print from that. and paint out scratches, creases, stains etc. with a pallet of grey scale paints. Then make a new negative and a new print from that, that they colorized. They thought it was going to be a booming business after the war. But color film was invented and the trade became obsolete. So he got a job with the railroad.
What a bell end for swearing, arse hole
0:22 what do you mean by people that were actually there? There was color back then?
What is it about old film photos that make them look like oil paintings, especially when coloured? The highlights and midtones are really controlled, as well as shadows. There's a lot of shadow detail and decent contrast but highlights tend to be very smooth.
im gonna tell you a secret.
multiply layer.
its in photoshop
shhhhhh…. dont tell anyone.
👏👏👏👏👏
history is awesome and this is a cool way to make people see that
Yeah it's not like they can just design a program that correlates shades to hues and you can just paint the color in like in the video here, hidden in plane sight. It's much more complicated, don't try this at home folks.
Easter Egg for Hitler
https://demos.algorithmia.com/colorize-photos/
cool, but I like to imagine the colors in black and white photos.
How do I get this job!?!?
I LOVE the colorized photos. It really does give you a new sense of history!
how does the Photoshop program know how to remove "blemishes" acquired from being so old. how does it take away water marks , but leave the clouds in for example, how can the program tell the difference? mind blown. Im clearly not artistic.
wow, it looks flawless. Oh yah this guy has got to be a millionaire. Millions of people would love just have their great grandparents photos colored in.
This is amazing. Truly makes the pictures feel a lot more real and relatable.
I am falling in love with this photos
I’ve been doing photo colorization on my own time lol