Colourising black and white photographs
Black-and-white and sepia originals brought into colour by hand, working from what can be established rather than what a machine assumes. Quoted per photograph, after I have seen a scan.
Quoted per photograph once I have seen a scan, alongside any restoration the picture needs
Quoted per photograph
Colour work varies too much for a price list. Send a scan and you get a figure and an honest opinion, free.
Researched, not averaged
Uniforms, insignia, liveries and period materials checked against sources rather than assumed.
Both versions supplied
You receive the restored black-and-white file as well as the colourised one, both print-ready.
Colour is an interpretation, not a recovery. A black-and-white negative never recorded the colour of your grandmother's coat, so nothing in the file can be decoded to find it. What colourisation does is put back a plausible version of what was there, tone by tone, and the whole craft lies in how carefully that plausibility is arrived at.
That is why I quote colourisation separately from [[photo restoration|restoration.html]], and why I ask questions before I start. The more you can tell me, the less I have to assume.
What can 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. So can the season, from foliage and light, and often the material of a garment, because different fabrics hold light in ways that survive into a monochrome print.
Then there is family memory, which is the most valuable source of all. 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.
What is guesswork, and how I handle it
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 where bad colourisation gives itself away: too pink, too even, too modern. Interiors and clothing of the 1900s to 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 a photograph you could believe was taken on colour film, not a painting.
Where AI comes into it
Automatic colourisation tools are fast and are wrong in predictable ways. They average across everything they have ever seen, so uniforms come out approximately khaki, skies come out approximately blue, and faces come out approximately pink. On a group photograph they will happily give six people 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 that has been guessed where it should have been researched. How I use artificial intelligence sets out exactly where the line sits. If you would rather no AI touched the picture at all, say so when you send it.
When to leave a photograph alone
Some pictures are better 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. So do very small or very soft originals, where adding colour mostly adds noise.
A common and better answer is to do both: keep the restored black-and-white version as the print, and have the colourised version alongside it. Seeing the two together is often what makes the person in the photograph feel present, and it costs little more than doing one.
Restoration first, then colour
Colourising a damaged photograph paints over the damage rather than removing it. Where a picture needs both, I restore it first and colourise the repaired file, so the tears, foxing and fading are gone before any colour is laid in. Most colourisation jobs here are quoted as restoration plus colour for that reason. Send the scan and I will tell you which the picture needs.
Albums I would suggest
Further reading
Tell me what you have, and what you would like made
Send me the photographs and a sentence about the occasion. I will come back with a recommendation and a price, with no obligation.