These colorized monochrome photos will change the way you imagine the past. Since we live and remember in color, a black-and-white image seems almost of another world. Through the process of colorization, that world becomes more familiar, easier to imagine, and easier to connect to.
Film colorization can be done by hand or digitally. Before the 1970’s, the most basic colorization required skillful painting of color directly onto film stock. The advent of computers allowed for digital colorization, a faster but still time-consuming process. In all cases, while there are some clues to the original color, artists often have to research or guess what color to use.
If colorization interests you, then embrace the challenge! The guides here and here will help get you started, and we look forward to seeing your results! We previously wrote about colorization here.
Source: reddit
Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner, taken in February, 1865
Image source: zuzahin
Boxing match aboard the U.S.S. New York, July 3, 1899
Image source: Urban2487
Yvonne (13) and Alexander (12) Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn take drink and smoke on yacht near Majorca
Image source: Bennity
An Ojibwe Native American spearfishing, Minnesota, 1908
Image source: Captain-Cliche
Adolf Hitler with Mussolini’s son-in-law and Joachim von Ribbentrop, attend a Nazi Party rally, ca 1930s
Image source: Captain-Cliche
Soldiers wearing gas masks while peeling onions at Tobruk, October 15, 1941
Image source: Captain-Cliche
Captain Walter “Waddy” Young and his crew pose in front of their caricatures on their B-29 Superfortress, November 24, 1944
Image source: Captain-Cliche
British tattoo artist George Burchett, the “King of Tattooists”, ca 1930
Image source: klassixx
Post officers show off their brand-new “Autopeds” scooters, Washington, D.C., 1917
Image source: ExtraNoise
Performer Sarah Vaughan, ca 1946
Image source: Captain-Cliche
Joe Lincoln of Accord, champion decoy maker of New England, 1926
Image source: photojacker
Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia, sling cart used in removing captured artillery during the American Civil War, ca 1865
Image source: zuzahin
Slice of life! A mother helps her child off the trolley on a Broadway in New York City, July, 1913
Image source: mygrapefruit
Black man drinking at ‘Colored’ water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahom ca July, 1939
Image source: Captain-Cliche
A young John F. Kennedy immediately after his graduation from Harvard, in the summer of 1940
Image source: zuzahin
Times Square, D-Day, 1944
Image source: Captain-Cliche
Observer on Iwo Jima, February, 1945
Image source: Dynamichrome
Children watch as their neighborhood is bombed in Minsk, Belorussia. The bombing was part of Operation Barbarossa. June, 1941
Image source: Captain-Cliche
Stalin and Churchill in Livadia Palace during the Yalta Conference, February, 1945
Image source: zuzahin
Louis and Lucille Armstrong at the Sphinx, January 28, 1961
Image source: Photo Chopshop