View allAll Photos Tagged colourisation
This might look like a colourisation of a B&W image, but it is in fact the recovery of a terribly under exposed Kodak colour transparency. It is also unusual to see a picture of a Midland Red bus in West Bromwich's Paradise Street as it is no more. Paradise Street ran from High Street at its junction with Bull Street through to St Michael's Street, but today is long lost under the development of the Kings Square Shopping centre and current bus station.
Working the 268 - Princess End - West Bromwich - Wolverhampton service is 4928; a 1961 built BMMO D9. This was one of the many Midland Red buses that were transferred to West Midlands PTE in December 1973. 4928 was at the time of this picture allocated to Midland Red's Wolverhampton garage, but in 1971 it was allocated to Dudley Garage, hence its transfer to WMPTE in 1973. 4928 was withdrawn by WMPTE in January 1976, and was sold in March 1976 to Birds Commercial Motors at Stratford-on-Avon for scrap.
Following an enforced week away from posting by a fault on our land-line, which also took out my ability to connect my computer gubbins to the interweb, I'm back again! That break gave me more opportunity than was good for me to undertake some digital colouring. Several of the items treated aren't my own copyright, so best if I don't share them here. However, I've had a go at a few of my older ones like the accompanying shot back from the days when I could barely afford photography, let alone colour.
This one shows Stonier of Goldenhill's ex Hutchison of Overtown AEC Reliance '470 / Willowbrook, KVD 15E. Whilst the original isn't perfectly sharp, it is one of my better ones from circa 1977 and I think it has responded quite well to colourisation.
'KVD' was the penultimate Stoniers bus which had seen service with the famed Scottish independent, and it served Stonier's reasonably well. Its small engine was a bit of a false economy as it had to be worked hard in the hilly terrain of North Staffordshire. That said, I recall it climbing the notorious Lime Kilm Bank east of Hanley one Saturday with 96 passengers aboard!
The photo was taken alongside the garage on High Street, Goldenhill were coincidentally, I started work 44 years ago today.
This small watercolour self-portrait was created by Turner in 1790 when he was only about 15 years of age. He went on to become a master of history, landscape and marine painting, he challenged the style of the old masters, trailblazing in technique and subject matter.
Described as the ‘father of modern art’ by John Ruskin, Turner often shocked his contemporaries with his loose brushwork and vibrant colour palette while portraying the development of the modern world unlike any other artist at the time.
It is no wonder that Turner became the most celebrated painter in England and that over one hundred and fifty years later, we celebrate contemporary artists of the same innovating spirit through the aptly named Turner Prize.
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851), known as J. M. W. Turner and contemporarily as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colourisations, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings.
Turner was born in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, to a modest lower middle-class family. He lived in London all his life, retaining his Cockney accent and assiduously avoiding the trappings of success and fame.
A child prodigy, Turner studied at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1789, enrolling when he was 14, and exhibited his first work there at 15. During this period, he also served as an architectural draftsman. He earned a steady income from commissions and sales, which due to his troubled, contrary nature, were often begrudgingly accepted. He opened his own gallery in 1804 and became professor of perspective at the academy in 1807, where he lectured until 1828, although he was viewed as profoundly inarticulate. He traveled to Europe from 1802, typically returning with voluminous sketchbooks.
Intensely private, eccentric and reclusive, Turner was a controversial figure throughout his career. He did not marry, but fathered two daughters, Eveline (1801–1874) and Georgiana (1811–1843), by his housekeeper Sarah Danby. He became more pessimistic and morose as he got older, especially after the death of his father, after which his outlook deteriorated, his gallery fell into disrepair and neglect, and his art intensified. He lived in squalor and poor health from 1845, and died in London in 1851 aged 76. Turner is buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral, London.
He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper. He had been championed by the leading English art critic John Ruskin from 1840, and is today regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting.
Fantasy colourisation of the west sky, shot from my yard in Regina, Saskatchewan on Nov. 28, at 5:02 p.m.
Shot 20 seconds later: "Wild Sunset"; www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/11933477003/
Shot 40 seconds later: "The Remains of the Day"; www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/11136646603/
See other sunsets in my "Sunsets" album: www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/sets/72157634112806178/
Shooting info: ultra wide-angle lens set at 18 mm, RAW, handheld, auto focus, -0.3 EV (by accident; I usually leave this at zero), 15.9 MP
Processing: saturation & light adjusted in Aperture 3; three spots at the bottom blackened with the retouch tool.
It was difficult for me to find the right colour tones for this image. Processing it took several attempts over several days.
It was cold, the sky threatened rain. Welcome to January in Southsea! The shingle beach is not the most enticing of locations on a day like this but I found the site of this red life belt against the sullen sky rather appealling.
Another excellent image from the Female Impersonator section of the Queer Music Heritage Site. This scan is from a "La Carrousel" brochure (a Female Impersonation venue in Paris in the 1940s/50s/60s) from approximately 1956 in "The JD Collection". The performer is Sandy Karina a Female Impersonator I know very little else about and as always would love to here from anyone with more information.
The original can be found here.
queermusicheritage.us/fem-lac4.html.
I cropped the original scan, cloned and healed the text and small insert picture of the performer in male guise and then colourise the resulting.
image. As usual I present the original image to the left for comparison purposes.
Usual disclaimer: I freely admit to taking the image from the above site. If my work causes offense, none is intended. If you are the model and/or copyright owner and object I will gladly remove. Publication here is purely to demonstrate my artistic interpretation of the original.
Disclaimer: The layered colourisation work and digital enhancements to the original are all my own work and any such unauthorised use (without prior permission) for that aspect of the work will be considered a violation of my copyright. Where the original item is shown, it is done so purely for comparative purposes only.
Fantasy colourisation of the sky over Les Sherman Park in Regina, Saskatchewan. Shot facing west, just before the sun dropped below the horizon. Shows better enlarged; press L.
See the companion image: "Gumdrop"; www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/9460494077/
Shooting info: RAW; handheld, auto focus, 15.2 MP
Processing: cropped along the bottom into 5 x 7 format; colour & light adjusted in Aperture 3; some spots retouched
Again a colourisation from a low-rez download of unknown copyright . . . maybe another Foden publicity shot?
This one shows JAW 334, one of Salopia of Whitchurch (Salop)'s magnificent 1952 Whitsun bodied rear engined Foden PVRF6 observation coaches. In the background can be seen another similar example, but one wearing a slightly different livery application. Foden's own 2 Stroke Diesel provided the equally interesting sound track.
The photograph was taken on Salopia's home turf at 'The Raven', Prees, on the outskirts of Whitchurch. The Raven still stands to this day (though I'm unsure whether its still open) as a remnent of the era of these large pub type hotels which derived much of their trade as a coach refreshment halt. Even now, one of its entrances facing the busy A49 has the legend 'Coach Lounge' over one of its doors.
Eric Lloyd was billed as "The Forces Sweetheart" during the war and afterwards in revues such as "Soldiers In Skirts", which much has been written about on this stream and elsewhere. According to Roger Bakers, excellent resource "Drag", Eric became a theatrical costumier, when the popularity of such revues waned in the late 1950's/60's.
This image is estimated to be from the late 40's.
Technical Bit:
The original image is seen on the left. For colourisation purposes the image was reduced to greyscale, to enable the colour saturation to take full effect. Some original handwriting has been removed using both clone/healing techniques, as were some of the blemishes on the original image.
Disclaimer: I am not the copyright owner of the original image and my electronic publication is not intended to infringe any such copyright. I seek to make to make no financial gain from the reproduction or the original work. If you are the original copyright owner and wish the image to be removed, please contact myself.
Disclaimer: The digital enhancements to the original are all my own work and any such unauthorised use (without prior permission) for that aspect of the work will be considered a violation of my copyright. Where the original item is shown, it is done so purely for comparative purposes only.
Fantasy colourisation of a sunset at the Sen. John Heinz Memorial Lookout beside Pennsylvania Route 15 southbound, overlooking the Tioga dam and part of the borough of Tioga. This lookout area is at the Welcome Center, 7 miles south of the NY/PA border. Shot at 7:32 p.m., local time.
See other sunset images in my "Sunsets" album.
Shooting info: RAW; handheld with remote shutter release, auto focus, master pixel size 14.6 (now 10.9 MP)
Processing: tilted and cropped along the bottom into 16 x 9 (HD) format; colour & light adjusted in Aperture 3
This photo in B&W form came into my possession if I recall correctly via the PMT archive, having already been scanned by someone else into digital form. Regrettably, when I came to attempt a colourisation, I found disappointlingly that it was of very low resolution. However, the subject matter spurred me on!
The Potteries Motor Traction Co. Ltd. of Woodhouse Street Stoker on Trent were the worlds largest customer for the Daimler Roadliner. In addition to all the buses they bought, they also took six coaches. The 1967 delivery comprised three with Plaxton Panorama 1 bodies, whilst the following year saw three (as here) with Duple's Commander III. If nothing else, they were imposing machines for the day. If the buses led short and often ignoble lives, the coaches served for an even shorter time, about four years from memory.
Here numerically the middle one of the 1968 Roadliner coaches, PVT 101F, makes its way along Woodhouse Street past the old Tramway power house seemingly being driven by an engineering foreman. It appears to be hoping to make the trip across country to Great Yarmouth which would be about a 500 mile round trip from Stoke with pick-ups.
Another earlier colourisation attempt of 1950's/60's Female Impersonator Marilyn Marks. This is from a fairly famous set from various publications of the time.
Disclaimer: The layered colourisation work and digital enhancements to the original are all my own work and any such unauthorised use (without prior permission) for that aspect of the work will be considered a violation of my copyright. Where the original item is shown, it is done so purely for comparative purposes only.
Jackie Hayes, appears to be a Female Impersonator from the 1950's who was self-described as "“America’s Foremost Female Impersonator”. There are several other images of this fine illusionist online, particularly the images produced by Anthony Bruno (aka Bruno of Hollywood), but right from my early days of interest in this topic I have admired this performer but the quality of the image was restricted as it seemed to be a scanned image from a Nutrix magazine. The photo was inscribed with the name of "Jackie Hayes" (an example can be found herhttp://vickirene.net/showgirls/showgirls-of-yesterday/jackie-hayes/) and I believed the original photographer was Irving Klaw (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Klaw) and recently a collection of prints was made available for online auction which included a much improved quality version of the image that I have used as the basis of my work.
Once again, more details of Jackie are hard to come by and all that remains are these few images that occasionally pop up on online auction sites, or what little may appear in online reference libraries/archives. As always, only to pleased to hear from anyone who maybe able to shed some more light on this performer.
Technically, I have greyscaled the original image, performed some "healing" and cloning to remove the inscription and then added the colour layers one by one. One is never certain if the colours are accurate and therefore the representation is to my taste and interpretation.
Disclaimer: I am not the copyright owner of the original image and my electronic publication is not intended to infringe any such copyright. I seek to make to make no financial gain from the reproduction or the original work. If you are the original copyright owner and wish the image to be removed, please contact myself.
Disclaimer: The layered colourisation work and digital enhancements to the original are all my own work and any such unauthorised use (without prior permission) for that aspect of the work will be considered a violation of my copyright. Where the original item is shown, it is done so purely for comparative purposes only.
Merry Christmas to you all my Flickr Friends and may you have a wonderful safe Yuletide (unless you are a turkey)!
. . . or, not just another sunset.
Fantasy colourisation of the sky over Regina, Saskatchewan as the sun was going down.
Shot from the south end of Prince of Wales Drive in the southeast area of the city.
Shot 2 min. later: "Blue Sunset"; www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/13096983693/
See more sunset shots in my "Sunsets" album: www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/sets/72157634112806178/
Processing: RAW; handheld, auto focus, master pixel size 15.9 (now 14.2 MP)
Processing: cropped along the bottom into 4 x 6 format; colour & light adjusted in Aperture 3
The photographic archive of the former Potteries Motor Traction Co. Ltd has provided me with several good quality images on which to practice the colourisation hobby. This publicity photo of one of their 1962 intake of 'saloons' being a good example. PMT took 10 of these Leyland Leopards and ten almost identical AEC Reliance '590s. Bodywork was by Willowbrook, but those built on the Leopard chassis were to a slightly lowered overall height to enable them to replace older stock which needed to pass under low railway bridges like the one on Heathcote Street in my home town of Kidsgrove. Their Willowbrook bodies seated 54 . . . once you'd surmounted the four precipitous entrance steps! The odd seat over the more usual 53 in a 36ft bus was a single inward facing one just behind the entrance door on the nearside. This seat was always the place to be for a young enthusiastic lad like me. Both types had 4 speed manual gearboxes, but from talking to drivers of that era, the Leopards were painfully heavy on the handlebars compared to the Reliances. . . neither of which of course had power steering.
The photo was taken in the grounds of Trentham Gardens.
Long exposure shot (10s). Shot in RAW, then processed with Silver Efex Pro. I'm not usually a big fan of partial colourisation - but on this one I tried reintroducing colour to the flowing water, to try to bring out the dappled sunlight. I also used cyanotype toning as a contrast.
Sometimes, trawaling through archives, you come across photos of bus interest, but which also contain more general transport and local history. This one of a corner of Newcastle under Lyme (Staffordshire) was from part of the salvaged PMT archive and would have been taken to show the new inner ring-road which took the A34 out of the town centre in the 1960s.
Whilst I'm reasonably confident about getting the liveries of the PMT and Crosville buses correct, I have to own up to choosing best guess colours for the cars and van pictured. Just about everything bar the church and the road itself has changed in the intervening years.
The Crosville single decker is an ECW bodied Bristol MW, whilst the PMT Willowbrook bodied saloon appears to be one of the unloved Albion Aberdonians.
The Wallingford Screen is a spectacular reredos in St.Alban's Cathedral, Hertfordshire, England. Completed in 1484 by Abbot William of Wallingford, the statues are replacements of 1884-89 for ones destroyed during the iconoclasm of the Reformation.
For a limited time - which began in March 2023 - St Albans Chathedral has been able to show how wonderful the screen may have looked in medieval times by digitally "colouring" the statues.
The Cathedral has worked in close partnership with Hogarth, a marketing implementation agency (part of WPP group), to explore ground-breaking techniques for bringing history to life, using the latest technology from Panasonic and Epic Games.
Cutting edge scanning and projection techniques using Reality Capture software brought to life the 15th century screen and 19th century statues with a millimetre-accurate 3D scan and re-colourisation, based on historic research by Dr James Alexander Cameron.
The colours have been produced by artist Amara Por Dios, and the technology was used to train apprentices in WPP’s Creative Technology Apprenticeship programme, which aims to diversify the emerging technology workforce.
This is a colourisation of a grainy print. I had some 400 asa film in the camera for a specific job at the time, back at the end of the '70s and needed to finish it off in order to get it processed. It was 'Potters Holidays' and coaches of all sorts called into Hanley Bus station disgorging their passengers and re-loading before departing for multitudes of other places.
Yelloway coaches became a familiar sight here after moving their principal North Staffordshire calling point from Newcastle under Lyme. Very often in the peak season, their services were duplicated and not always by one of their own vehicles. So it was here when Plaxton Supreme bodied AEC Reliance NNC 853P found itself partnered with a Turner's of Bristol Ford R1114 Duple Dominant II. This area of the bus station was at the time 'lay-over' parking, so that would indicate that all the available stands at the coach end were otherwise occupied. Later in time additional departure stands were built here and buses exited via a hitherto lightly used opening onto Birch Terrace (next to the VAS in the background). This whole bus station / multi storey car park and associated shopping precincts have now been buldozed. The present facility, badly laid out, is about half the size on a nearby site.
Fantasy colourisation of the sky over Regina, Saskatchewan at sunset.
Seen for .4 second, from the south end of Prince of Wales Drive in the southeast area of the city.
Caption inspired by the 1966 Ronald Miller/Bryan Wells soul song, "A Place in the Sun".
Shot 1 min. later: "Autumn Sunset"; www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/12737717173/
See other sunset shots in my "Sunsets" album: www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/sets/72157634112806178/
See more of Regina in this album: www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/sets/72157629409033432/
Shooting info: ultra wide-angle lens set at 15 mm, RAW, handheld, auto focus, master pixel size 15.9 (now 11.2 MP)
Processing: tilted, cropped along the bottom, saturation & light adjusted in Aperture 3
German pilot Alfred Bäder* from Jasta 65 (on the right leaning against the wing) poses next to his Fokker D.VII fighter. August to November 1918.
Unfortunately somewhat degraded, this photo offers a clear view of what made this particular aircraft famous among modelers: a rendition of a scene taken from an old Medieval German fairy tale called “The Seven Swabians”.
In the tale, 7 Swabians decide to travel the world carrying with them a long spear for protection. Among other adventures, one day they meet a sleeping hare which they take for a monster. Mustering all their courage they charge the hare but the later easily escapes, whereupon they realize they were once again fooled. Apparently, the whole point of the tale is to make fun of the people from the old Duchy of Swabia.
The aircraft has two distinct scenes painted on each side of the fuselage, one showing the Swabians seeing the hare and the one in this photo showing them charging the escaping animal. Behind the cockpit is the House of Württemberg Coat of Arms.
Uffz Alfred Bäder joined Jasta 65 from Jastaschule 2, serving with the unit from 31 August 1918 to 11 November 1918. During this period he scored two victories, both over Salmson fighters, one on October 2 and another on November 8, 1918. He was wounded in combat on September 4.
*Originally, the pilot was thought to be Wilhelm Scheutzel but it is now known that it was Alfred Bäder.
Note: Although models are usually painted in bright new colours, when this photo was taken this aircraft was clearly worn out with the mottled pattern on the wings barely visible and even a flat tire. Given the choice, I always prefer, if possible, to keep true to the photo so I kept the colours faded.
Original’s source unknown
Ferrari 599 aparcado en la zona financiera de Estocolmo. Justo detrás el moderno edificio del Banco de Suecia
Parked Ferrari 599 in the financial zone of Stockholm. Just behind the modern building of the Bank of Sweden
Perhaps the most bitty of all the colourisations I've yet attempted, primarily because the bus isn't filling the screen and there's a fair bit going on around besides. This one was at least aided by being a more crisp 35mm shot, taken with my trusty Zorki 4k rangefinder camera. It represented my first venture into the format though Ilford FP4 film was still my preference. Unfortunately the Zorki had a nasty habit of exposing one side of the frame a little more than the other. Still, to me it represented a step change from what I'd been used to.
This scene shows Pooles of Alsagers Bank Willowbrook bodied Leyland Leopard, XRE 912H turning off Barracks Road, Newcastle under Lyme, into The Ironmarket in 1979. The Ironmarket was at the time, and had been for years previously, a major gathering point for local bus services, but nowadays its largely a pedestrian zone with no through traffic.
XRE 912H was withdrawn at a relatively young age, allegedly due to body frame corrosion . . . this was of course still in the era of The Certifying Officer, the man from the ministry who was god. If he proclaimed the bus wasn't in the best of health structuraly (whether it was or not) his word went and the bus was doomed as a PSV! The bus passed upon withdrawal to a dance troupe from the Penkridge area.
This is a colourisation that I did for a dear friend of mine.
The picture is of her grandfather (second from left) who, along with the other three young men here, died a few months after it was taken.
Shot down over France.
What I did not realise when I was working on it was that this was one of only two pictures the family have of Joe and that they had never seen him in colour. It was an honour and a real privilege to work on it.
Lest we forget.
. . . or so I thought.
North Wales independent Whiteways, not unsurprisingly, used white as their livery. They were somewhat in advance of the modern trend to have 50% of the country's remaining PSVs in bland white (with stickers if you're 'lucky'). Back in the mid '70s when I took the original b&w of their ex Warrington Corporation PD1 DED 797, white was novel and unusual.
I'm pretty sure I would have given a report on how I came to take this picture with my original posting of it some time ago, so I won't bore with the detail again. Suffice to say that I was on one of the most enlightening Geography field study trips from secondary school!
Several of the former Lancashire Municipal fleets had a flirtation with Leyland's rear engined Panther chassis. Liverpool Corporation was one, as was neighbouring Southport. Both those two operations were merged into the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive which was originally formed in 1969. Metro Cammell bodied FKF 910F would have been a mere two years old. By the time I caught up with it here in Liverpool city centre circa 1978 it would have been approaching ten years of age and probably hadn't much longer to go. If memory serves me correctly, I was in the city on a Geography trip from school and enjoying that 'free time' both we and the teachers looked forward to.
This is a colourisation of my own murky un-sharp original black & white shot, the latter version of which appeared elsewhere in my Flickr pages many moons ago.
1961 (colourised). Spurred on by others on Flickr, notably TrainsandTravel and Katerfelto, ( if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!) this is a colourised version of a black & white shot of an identified 'King', possibly either 6007 KING WILLIAM III or 6027 KING RICHARD I, near West Ruislip in the late summer of 1961.
West Ruislip is on the Great Western and Great Central Joint Line not far out of London and was the route taken by Great Western, and later Western Region, trains from London to Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Birkenhead. The train with reporting number M16 is (was!) the 1.10pm from London Paddington to Birkenhead.
Many thanks to Keith Long for providing me with the information regarding the time and destination of M16. And to Geoff Plumb for telling me where I was at the time.
This is my first attempt at colourisation and it's by no means perfect. It took me ages to do – in fact I was so engrossed in it that I was up half the night working on it.
However, warts and all, I think that it's sufficiently presentable to be launched on an unsuspecting public!
Thanks to Geoff Plumb ( see his SmugMug site: plumbloco.smugmug.com/ ) for improving my ham-fisted efforts for me.
Copyright © Ron Fisher.
Colourisation is a double edged sword. At its best it opens up a new aspect to our hobby, gives pleasure to the person doing the 'work' and hopefully to most viewing. It also allows hitherto mediocre captures to have a new lease of life. On the flip side, those undertaking the job need to have a good basic idea of how the scene should look, with in particuular, accuracy of the livery being interpreted in the case of a bus / coach. If its wrong, you're re-interpreting history.
In the case of this view of Mounts Bay Coaches Duple Commander IV AEC Reliance NUR 484H, I only have my memory to refer to. Try as I might, I couldn't find a single colour photo on line of this coach with that operator. My memory tells me that its livery was much lighter than their standard two tone blue (present on their Plaxton bodied Leyland Panther the same day).
The original negative to this was totally out of focus too, but via a convoluted path of sending the scanned image to my phone, some black magic in the latter allows an 'un-blurring' feature to help us out. Its not 100%, but it improves matters dramatically. This then is a colourised version of the sharpened original.
NUR 484H was one of a pair of similar AEC Reliance 691s (the other being 483H) new to Whytes of Colnbrook in 1970. This was her in 1976 at Plymouth's Bretonside Bus Station where I'd arrived aboard as a 15 year old on a day trip from Hayle. What a crackin' ride home it was 'competing' with and trouncing the aforementioned Panther on the climbs.
I believe, after service with Penzance based Mounts Bay, it moved on to Roselyn Coaches of Par where it joined many other AECs.
A Musketier from (most probably) Kgl. Württembergisches Ersatz-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 51 sporting a rarely seen ersatz bayonet 56 on his kar98. Probably loaned to him for the photo as he has another, more common ersatz bayonet hanging from his belt.
Note: Corduroy pants could have been grey or brown. Concerning the troddel, the ‘Stengel’ yellow colour was extrapolated from the original photo’s grey tones given that the other possibility was red which should appear as almost black. Straps seem to have been white with a red number but light reflected on the fabric might be inducing one in error. Given the existing doubts, the colours chosen for all of the above should be considered for demonstration purposes only.
Unused postcard by Photo-haus "Krieg" in Urach, Württemberg from the collection of S. Wouters.
For addicional information on this photo visit the b&w original at paranoid_womb's photostream.