Colorizing Old Black And White Photos

I have seen several old time black and white photos posted online after they had been colorized. I always thought this looked like a fun thing to do, but I never spent the time to actually do it myself. Just recently I came across a step-by-step tutorial on how to colorize old photos. I decided I would give it a shot.

Tutorial link: http://www.worth1000.com/tutorials/161018/tutorial

I started with an old family photo. The people in this photo would be about 100 years old if they were alive today. That makes the picture approximately 75 years old.

I started by scanning the photo at high resolution on a flatbed scanner. I saved the file as a jpg. I then followed along with the steps outlined in the tutorial linked above. I’ve included several of the intermediate steps in pictures below, culminating with the final colorized image.

It was a fun project and I found the process to be enjoyable. It took me about 2 hours to do this since it was my first time. With the experience of doing it once, I estimate I could do another similar photo in about 30-45 minutes now.  I recommend trying this technique out if you have some time and some old black and white family photos. I’m sure you could do a much better job than I did in my first attempt.

The colorized photos make a great gift for family members!

 

Intermediate steps not shown:

1. Eyes
2. Tie
3. Suit
4. Dress