Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

[Nathan Dodds]

I've been wondering something for the longest time. With all the computer technology available today, has anybody ever considered or heard of anybody making a book of famous Civil War photographs digitally colourized? It would be really neat to see the war in color if it could be done in a realistic way backed by the best research as far as colors of uniforms, wagons guns and limbers etc. What do you all think? Could this be done and should it, or has anybody already attempted it?

[brown]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

Isn't this akin to putting WonderBread on the table at the last supper? Are some things seen as too sacred to alter (remember the backlash when Turner colorized It's a Wonderful Life)? Does Trioni fill this market, without the taboo, to some degree?

[dixieflyer]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

Nathan I have see this discussion on another forum that focuses on WWI aviation. One of the silverbacks there, who has published extensively in the field, went so far as to make the bold claim that he could determine colors from B&W photos. (He later retreated from that stance.) Bottom line: it can't be done, at least not with any degree of certainty. At best, it would all be best guesses. I remember back in the 80's or early 90's, someone colorized some images, but that was all it was, their best guess.

[Nathan Dodds]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

I will always admire the artistic value of black and white for photos. I believe there are effects with shadows and such that cannot be arrived at any other way. All I'm saying is it would be interesting to see what well researched 1860's in real colour might theoretically look like. WWII has it's colour photos even though they are rare. Even WWI has autochromes, which in some cases are very close to true colour. Wouldn't some Civil War shots just take away the breath in colour?

[dixieflyer]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

Then again, you might be disappointed. I'm just sayin'. ;)

[CompanyWag]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

I'm afraid this would prove to be another example of historical masturbation.
It just ain't as satisfying as the real thing.

Paul McKee

[Hank Trent]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

Wasn't there a fellow who colored some photos and posted them here a few years ago? They were just ordinary photos of ordinary people, and the effect was very striking.

Okay, found it. Jason R. Wickersty (ThehosGendar) Here's one thread, and you might be able to find others: http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/...ighlight=color

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[reddcorp]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

Well, let's see, would you really want to see a colorized version of "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "It's a Wonderful Life" or any number of other B&W movies? To me, that would change the vision totally, and not in a good way. But that's just one man's opinion.
Andy Redd

[maillemaker]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

Personally, I love seeing colorized photos. I would hazard to say that everything we do in a reenactment sense is an attempt to get as close to the real feeling of what they did as possible. Likewise, the more realistic the photos the closer to real life they become.

Steve

[Hank Trent]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

Like Steve, I can see the point of doing this. It's pretty common for reenactors to want to get wetplate photos taken of themselves. It's a useful exercise, since if we can experience seeing a living person translated to wetplate, it helps us imagine what it would be like to see the people that we only know from wetplate, as they would have been in the real world.

Adding color to period photos is another way of approaching the same problem. We're all used to seeing color photos and casual poses, so we hardly notice the medium any more, unlike wetplate, where we have to train ourselves to get past the medium. On another thread, someone, maybe Jason R. Wickersty again, cropped out and enlarged little vignettes from period crowd scenes, that showed people in casual poses--two people chatting in an audience, things like that. It helped one to see the past, the way we're used to seeing the present.

Adding color would only continue the illusion, and break down the barrier between those strange people in the old pictures, and living human beings like the ones around us.

The problem with most colorization techniques that I've seen, including the ones that I linked to in the post above, is the paradox that the color is most intense in the lightest areas, becoming increasingly dull and gray as it competes with the gray of the shadows. It's a very distinctive "colorized" appearance. The paraodx is that in real color photos, the color is less intense in the lightest areas, stronger in the midtones, and becomes darker, perhaps more bluish, but not necessarily more grayish, in the shadows.

Surely nowadays there's a way, with a computer program, to overcome that problem, by changing the color of the gray itself, rather than layering color on top of the gray.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[maillemaker]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

It helped one to see the past, the way we're used to seeing the present.

Very well said.

STeve

[Hank Trent]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

The problem with most colorization techniques that I've seen, including the ones that I linked to in the post above, is the paradox that the color is most intense in the lightest areas, becoming increasingly dull and gray as it competes with the gray of the shadows. It's a very distinctive "colorized" appearance. The paraodx is that in real color photos, the color is less intense in the lightest areas, stronger in the midtones, and becomes darker, perhaps more bluish, but not necessarily more grayish, in the shadows.

Here's a quick-and-dirty example of what I mean. The one on the left is a random black-and-white ancestor picture. The one on the right is the picture with the typical colorized look, with color painted on top. The one in the middle was my quick attempt to to change the actual gray tones to skin-color. I'm still not pleased with it, but it already gets way from the typical pancake makeup look of typical colorization. I didn't attempt to colorize anything but the face, not the hair or clothes. Edited to add: I think the contrast is too high, and it needs some more color in the highlights, but not as much as the pancake makeup version.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Cpt Boone]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

If I recall, there were some period attempts at coloring photos. Gold being the most prevelant touch up on them, but some basic hand tinted color. Just my 2 cents.

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

I'm not sure when it was done, but I have seen several period photos with gold buttons added in, blush applied to cheeks, etc. Up until the mid-1960s photo coloring was an actual occupation. No one could ever mistake the result for a photo done in color, for all the reasons Hank Trent mentioned; the gray always shows through and the effect is a strange, half-painting-with-deep-shadows affair.
AFAIK the best colorizing possible at present keys from fabrics, skin tones, etc. available to the colorist. I have no idea how the movies manage to get rid of the heavy gray shadow problem, but the result still isn't exactly right. Reds, in particular, come through very bright compared to other colors.
So long as no originals are harmed, I'm all for the transformation. Son is 21 and often remarks that the color images from WWII make it seem much more real to him. This is another reason to strive for accuracy in our impressions: we're the only Civil War some people will ever see.

[Nathan Dodds]

Re: Digitaly colourized Civil War photos?

Cpt Boone: actually, the first color photo ever made was made in the 1860's. Here it is:




Google "first colour photo" to read more. The process as I remember, was far too complicated to be used by common people.