I don't like 'colourised' photos. Do you?

I debated writing a very involved response, but thought naff it. A few articles have circulated over the years suggesting that younger generations with less of a direct link to the past do respond well to colour photos of the past as it makes it real. Helps provide a swift reference for the world as they record it etc.

Period colour photos are wonderful, colourisation (as its all fedgling guesswork by Twiddles McGee after a five min google) is a joke.

So can it engage, it appears so. Jackson believes the former - I believe he is a proponent of the research underpinning it, and it defined his museum's interpretation of the Great War. So there is a lot to his approach in some ways.

The biggest problem is the huge number of unscrupulous colourists who effectively anchor their business model around clickbait and are frankly guessing at what they portray, then using the wonderful phrase "I DID MY RESEARCH" to cover a multitude of basic sins and signal their worth as a RESEARCHER and dedicated HISTORIAN to their fans, as obvs ££££ is NOT an incentive. NO.

There, I even avoided pointing out how 'new media' believes 'history is irrelevant' to 16 - 40 demographic.

Oh... so close.

Balls.

 

Yesterday whilst I was at the Imperial War Museum after a slight hesitation the teacher told the school children that the Weeping Window Poppies were to celebrate the end of World War 2.

Lets hope this is a one off otherwise black and white or colour photographs of the time wont make the slightest difference to a generation of goldfish.

 

Steve I know what you mean mate
A photo of my Mum and Dad on their wedding day August 1941 which I had coloured by a professional

 

Clive,

He would not have approved of your parents being so frivolous during wartime.

 

Had this thread pointed at me by the Dark Lord his'self, so chucking in my own 2c for good measure...

[Igor (eye-gore)] Mathter Von Poop, I'd definitely dig out the tints and play (not on "originals", obviously), but do keep the de-rigueur mask on that is so in-style these days, so as to keep the brushes away from ones face... [/Igor (eye-gore)]

With me been playing with (digital) imagery for so many years now and photography back to my first camera in the mid sixties (Man From Uncle Spy Camera, from the Spy briefcase; so wish I still had it; just got the badge left) but never really working with the development side I did not know about "sepia" being an option from the get-go and always believed it to be degradation, which it can be, but... so ta for that info Boss...

Regarding colourisation techniques... if you have a quality image, a quality program, and most importantly, time, then it has it's place...
If you have none of the above, then it is what it is... amateur...
If you take a known and classic image that is cherished and play with it, purists will, of course, object, which is their right...
It is a corner of Photoshop (yes it does have that function, with LOTS of possible tweaks to confound the unknowing on that exponential curve that the program is) I have not yet experimented with (the "time" factor) but intend to... presently stuck in Lightroom going over images taken over a year ago, then there's the stuff I took in 2017 that just got archived, and, and...

I don't get out much... best that way; too easily distracted... heading back to the CBI pages...

Have you become so thoroughly hacked off as I have about the ordering of photo albums on Farcebook... all new images go to the bottom of the "album" pile so it has become pointless to try and use it for "photography" perse... can't even use the "go-back" option any more... need to find a more "professional" outlet for them...

 

Too much champagne. Here's the hangover cure:

1844 Daguerrotype from the library of Congress website: processed by the LOC through copying to black-and-white negative, then all the digital stuff.

[Unidentified man, about 30 years of age, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front]

 

That actually reminds me of very old style colour postcards etc so, in that context, it's not as bad as it looks? Personally I think it looks awful...but in a quaint sort of way...

 

Could the half-hidden soldier on the right be a collector for the Blue Cross animal charity taking a well-earned rest from a morning's chugging?

 

Colourising really is something that consenting adults should be free to engage in, in the privacy of their own homes but it should stop there. Distributing it should be treated as a hate crime.

I hate it and it makes me hate the perpetrator...so it must meet the threshold !

 

I think people are forgetting that colour emulsions/films from this period (Kodachrome and Agfacolor farbdia) also had weird spectral sensetivity, unlike modern slides/negatives.

Which often needs to be corrected for digitally to look natural.

Look at Agfa farbdia from the 30s to 40s. Or 30/40s Kodachrome.

 

That LoC stuff is quite something in terms of the workover. Captain (later Rear Admiral) A.A. Harwood, USN, probably in the 1850s.

US People--Harwood, Andrew A. (1802-1884)

All the best

Andreas

 

It's so frequently done so poorly that it becomes the first thing I notice about the image and a distraction from the impact of the picture. Signed a grumpy old fart.

 

...or even that self-developed Ferrania kit stuff from the 70/80s. I did loads of those - slide show anyone?....