Colourisation: how it works and what it costs
Black-and-white photographs brought into colour by hand, working from evidence rather than a guess. How the process actually works, and why it's priced per photograph rather than off a list.
Colour is an interpretation, not a recovery. A black-and-white negative never recorded the colour of your grandmother's coat, so there is nothing in the file to decode and find it. What colourisation does is put back a plausible version of what was there, tone by tone, judgement by judgement — and the whole craft lies in how carefully that plausibility is arrived at rather than how quickly.
What can actually be established
A great deal more than people expect. Military and civil uniforms, regimental facings, school and club colours, medal ribbons, and the liveries of vehicles and shopfronts are all documented and can be matched properly rather than guessed. The season can usually be read from foliage and light, and often the material of a garment too, because different fabrics hold light in ways that survive into a monochrome print.
Family memory is the most valuable source of all, and the one a photograph itself can never supply. Eye colour, hair colour, the blue of a particular dress, the green of a front door: if someone in the family still remembers, tell me, and I will work to that rather than to an average.
Where it's guesswork, and how that's handled
Where nothing can be established, I choose restrained, period-plausible colour rather than something eye-catching. Skin tones are the hardest part, and the place bad colourisation gives itself away fastest: too pink, too even, too modern. Interiors and clothing from the 1900s to the 1950s were duller than the internet suggests, and matching that dullness is what makes a colourised photograph read as a photograph rather than as an effect. I keep saturation low and let the original tonality carry the picture — the aim is something you could believe was shot on colour film, not a painting.
Where AI comes into it
Automatic colourisation tools are fast, and wrong in predictable ways. They average across everything they have ever seen, so uniforms come out approximately khaki, skies come out approximately blue, and six people in a group photograph can end up with the same complexion. I use them, but as an underpainting rather than an answer: a first pass that gets the broad separation of areas started, then hand work on every part that matters, and a full replacement of anything guessed where it should have been researched. How I use artificial intelligence sets out exactly where that line sits, and if you would rather no AI touched the photograph at all, say so when you send it.
Restoration first, then colour
Colourising a damaged photograph paints over the damage rather than removing it, so where a picture needs both, I restore it first and colourise the repaired file — the tears, foxing and fading are gone before any colour goes in. Most colourisation work here is quoted as restoration plus colour for exactly that reason. What is recoverable in restoration is worth reading first if you are not sure which your photograph needs.
What it costs
Colourisation itself is quoted per photograph, once I have seen a scan, rather than sold off a price list — the amount of research and hand work a photograph needs varies too much for a flat rate to be honest. What I can tell you upfront is the restoration cost underneath it, if the print needs repair as well as colour: correction (fading, colour casts, dust, light marks) is £15.00 a photograph, or £125.00 for ten; repair (scratches, creases, tears, water spotting) is £30.00, or £250.00 for ten; reconstruction, for large losses or severe deterioration, is £75.00, or £600.00 for ten. Colourisation is added on top of whichever of those the print actually needs, and a scan gets you a real figure and an honest opinion before anything is agreed, always free.
When to leave a photograph alone
Some pictures are better left in black and white, and I will tell you when I think so. Strongly lit portraits, high-contrast press photographs, and anything where the composition depends on tonal drama usually lose more than they gain. A common and better answer, where the photograph is genuinely torn between the two, is to do both: keep the restored black-and-white print as the primary version and have the colourised copy alongside it. Seeing them together is often what makes the person in the photograph feel present, and it costs little more than doing one.
Send me a scan, and I will tell you honestly what I expect to achieve and what it will cost, as part of any photo restoration or heritage album commission, before any money changes hands.
