View allAll Photos Tagged colourisation
Two construction cranes and a fantasy colourisation of the sky at the University of Regina campus in Regina, Saskatchewan.
See what's behind me: "The Glass Tipi"; www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/9245890574/
Shooting info: RAW; handheld, auto focus, master pixel size 15.9 (now 11.6 MP)
Processing: cropped along the top & bottom; colour & light adjusted in Aperture 3; some spots blackened with the retouch tool
This Old Cadillac (1970s? Cadillac experts please help me here) is used to publicise a bar in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire.
A restored and colourised version of the sepia photo below, taken circa 1914. Photographer and studio unknown.
The subject is Bertha Dorothy Adshead (1909-2002) aged approx. 4 years.
Known affectionately in the family as 'Auntie Dot', she was my third cousin twice removed - our common ancestor was my Great Great Great Great Grandfather !
There is not much left of this BR Standard 2.6.0 being cut at Woodhams yard in April 1972. The only other locomotive to be scrapped here during the 1970s was GWR 28xx 2.8.0 3817, which was dealt with in 1973.
Pracktica Nova 1/50mm
A colourisation of an earlier upload using Google Gemini AI.
Scattered across the city like relics from a bygone era, Edinburgh’s police boxes have long since retired from active duty. Originally installed from 1932 onwards, these cast-iron sentinels were once part of a highly organised communications network for patrolling officers. Most were designed by City Architect Ebenezer MacRae and manufactured by Carron Ironworks of Falkirk — the same foundry famous for producing everything from cannons to cookware.
Each box was a tiny outpost: equipped with a phone line to headquarters, a chair, a kettle, and a modest sink. That sink — often dated to the early 1930s — served a multi-purpose role: for washing up, grabbing a quick drink, or more dubiously, as a makeshift urinal. The boxes didn’t include a proper toilet, so officers on the beat had to make do, armed only with a bottle of bleach and a stiff upper lip.
On winter nights, the boxes offered slight relief from the cold with a one-bar electric fire or oil heater. They also doubled as secure holding spots for the occasional drunken troublemaker until backup arrived.
Most of these boxes have now been sold off and found new lives — as coffee kiosks, tour guide hubs, or simply as curiosities parked on street corners. Their sirens are long gone, but they remain a unique feature of the city’s architectural and policing heritage.
As one local site reports, there’s even a rumour from the 1970s — when female officers began using the boxes — that one unfortunate woman managed to break the sink. Whether that’s fact or just a cheeky bit of gallows humour from the boys in blue remains delightfully unclear.
The original plan was a nice circular walk from Chichester Yacht Club to Dell Quay and back. That turned out to be a very muddy experience and resulted in a trip to Chichester to buy new shoes. The beach at West Wittering was more amenable to walking without getting dirty. However, the sky remained heavy and the breeze was picking up. I think that this mono image of the groynes conveys the atmosphere quite well
AI / Colourisation can almost work. This from a piece of b/w film , an LT Car , in the film it can be identified as #587. Here on Parkers Row with Dockhead in the distance. Abbey Street crossing left and right. The Pub was the "Prince Teck". (CollectionFB)
There are some colourisation programs available I believe, but it is much more interesting to paint vintage photographs by yourself.
So taking the John Bell (1845-1914) image of a father and son, my job was to imagine what it might have looked like in colour during the 1870s. This is clearly a studio portrait and the men would have dressed in their Sunday best. The subjects are leaning on a strange rock of some kind (whether real or not). It has the look of an anvil. I've taken a liberty and shown them wearing blue jeans.
This photograph of the vintage photo was taken by me with the Nikon D850.
Once again I remind people interested in the craft of painting photographs to check out the website and book on "The Art of Handpainting Photographs" by Cheryl Machat Dorskind.
www.cherylmachatdorskind.com/the-art-of-handpainted-photo...
North Western Road Car took 16 Atkinson buses in 1951/52, all except two, with Weymann bodies. Here is 509, pictured around 1960, perhaps at Urmston depot, where I believe they were generally allocated. The rather strange destination display gives no clue!
The is another Google Gemini AI colourisation from a black and white negative in my collection, the original having suffered badly with mould, easily removed. AI didn't like the Atkinson badge however, initially adding wings to the circle, then giving me just the A and so on. I ended up removing it altogether and will have another go later.
Gustav Fröhlich and Margarete Lanner in Metropolis (1927)
Part-colourised for Worth1000's "Pleasantville 28" compotition.
... and for Sliders Sunday. HSS!!!
Another Google Gemini AI colourisation, this Bedford SB1/Duple was in use as a caravan at Scarborough in May 1986. New to Northamptonshire operator Shelton-Orsborn of Wollaston in 1960, it was last taxed in 1987. Fortunately there is a picture of this coach in this guise elsewhere on Flickr so that I knew that the colour was blue, although the DVLA has it down as green, perhaps the colour of it's last PSV owner.
Pentax K1000/50mm
Ilford FP4
This is what I saw and bought without hesitation. A fine early example of German photo art. It is in its original frame, 12 x 9 cms, and beautifully presented. You can't really see it in my photograph, but the photo and glass covering it are curved convexly to give it the feel of 3D. This made it difficult to focus. There are little added highlights, such as the "mother of pearl" strips, that just add a little sparkle to the presentation.
When I discussed it with proprietor Andrew Puccetti, he quite rightly pointed out that color photography (using a single plate) only technically became possible from 1906. But this shot had the feel of the 1890s to my (history) eye.
This appears to be a beautifully handpainted black and white print. As for identifying the location, there are a number of clues. "Breitestrasse" is translated literally, "Wide Street". It's the German equivalent of "High Street" in Britain and Australia, or "Main Street" in America. As for the city, "Thorn W. Pr." refers to Thorn in West Prussia (in modern Poland).
There was indeed a genuine method of producing a color print in the 1890s. It was called the Photochrom technique and pioneered by Photoglob Zurich AG. Thousands of copies were produced and sold, and the Germans were the world leaders in this technology. Photochroms taken as three separate monochrome negatives and then printed to form one colour image. Before and after this technology was developed, handpainted colourisation was going on.
It is unlikely this picture is a Photochrom. As we can see it shows evidence of hand retouching (especially of the faces looking towards the camera), and the buildings down the street appear to have been coloured according to a pattern.
* Taschen (probably the most prestigious art publisher in the world) has released a magnificent book on German Photochroms from around 1900.
hyperallergic.com/265657/photochroms-capture-belle-epoque...
* This article also has some supporting information on Photochroms:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photochrom
* Finally, on the history of colour photography try:
blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/a-short-history-of-colo...
Above all, if you see something like this in an antique shop. Buy it!!! I think I got a real bargain.
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: "Jelly Bean"; www.flickr.com/photos/joan-marie/9457398262/
Shooting info: RAW; handheld, auto focus, master pixel size 15.9 (now 11.9 MP)
Processing: cropped along the bottom into 16 x 9 (HD) format; colour & light adjusted in Aperture 3; some areas retouched
Just one of the many small things I admire about the British culture. I don't know if they do this in other cultures but often in parks you will find benches and trees dedicated to a lost loved one.
NSE held a Network Day on 22 November 1986 and I took the opportunity to visit some towns in Kent. Here in Maidstone is Eastbourne's ex-Southampton Leyland Atlantean 68 on loan to Boro'line.
A Google Gemini AI colourisation of a black and white negative.
Pentax K1000/50mm
Ilford FP4
Fantasy colourisation of the ceiling in the lobby of the government-owned T.C. Douglas building in Regina, Saskatchewan. Building design by architects Arnott MacPhail Johnstone of Regina.
Shooting info: RAW; handheld, auto focus, 15.9 MP
Processing: colour & light adjusted in Aperture 3, one reflection removed with the retouch tool
More 'colourisation' joy as Laura tackles this end-of-life view of a pre-war WCT Daimler COG5 in Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton in 1956. From an original negative.
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.
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.
Another restore and colourisation from a print from the collection mentioned in the previous posting. This is a Valliant-Cronshaw Leyland L2 Leopard at Blackpool on 19 August 1967. The fleet name on the original print was so faint that Google Gemini could make no sense of it, so I have left it off altogether for now. Oddly, on it's first attempt, it also added 'Harrington' into the blind box.
The photographer is not known, but may have been the late Charles Dean. Happy to credit/remove if requested.
Here I've converted a standard colour RAW file to gray scale (I never shoot black and white in camera because it limits my processing options). From there I work with colour toning and the tone curve to produce a form of colourisation. I am not looking for realistic colours as such, but like a painter trying to create an impression of the scene. This picture contains various shades of yellow, green and blue.
[This is certainly an image that needs to be enlarged for full effect.]
Another Google Gemini AI colourisation, here is London Country RT2722 of Windsor garage, sitting outside the station before leaving for home on 18 May 1975.
The irony here is that I also took a colour slide of this, and other buses, but the film in an old TLR failed to wind on, and I lost them all.
Fujica ST701/55mm
Ilford FP4
Before I leave the subject of retrospective colourisations, here's another fairly recent offering. This one shows 478 FCG, a Park Royal bodied AEC Reliance from the late lamented Chiltern Queens fleet which had been new fairly locally to Aldershot and District as a coach. By the time of my photo, circa 1979/80 it had obviously had bus seats substituted, but by then I suspect, its tramping days were over.
The original photo was taken at the 'Reading Stations' terminal and one of the Corporation's new fangled Metropolitan double deckers makes a cameo appearance.
I tried my hand at selective colourisation... I'm not sure how good it is, but it's the best I could do, using features I rarely use in GIMP! There are obvious flaws but I do like the overall effect and I hope to get better at it.
When I thought about what Flickr is for me, I concluded it’s all about passion that sets my heart on fire. I’m always searching for new ideas and new sights that are like a guiding light right in that very heart. I had a photo already that literally is the depiction of that heart on fire albeit with its natural colors not directly in the colors of Flickr. So, I decided to do something I normally don’t do and alter the colors and redo a photo to show my appreciation to Flickr and the whole community.
A young competitor prepares for the caber toss at the 2026 Balquhidder, Lochearnhead and Strathyre Highland Games and Gathering. Every successful throw begins long before the caber leaves the hands: balance, grip and concentration are all essential before attempting to turn the massive timber cleanly end over end.
With the athlete and caber standing out against a muted background, this image captures the quiet focus that precedes one of Scotland’s most iconic sporting challenges.
Something a little different for this evening, harking back to the colourisations I developed a liking for prior to having 30-40,000 negatives to scan!
Regrettably I have no idea who took the original of this photo which appears from time to time on local Stoke on Trent Facebook pages. It depicts three of The City of Stoke on Trent's finest fire engines which were probably based at Burslem fire station (just visible above the leading Dennis) and was more than likely a professionally taken a 'publicity' image. The location is Hamil Road and Port Vale Football Club's new ground is on the right here. The town of Burslem is in the middle distance. I opted to just colour the fire engines themselves as most of the Potteries was black and varying shades of grey in the 1960s!
I don't normally post family photos, but this is one of my great-grandfathers. I'm happy with the colourisation. He was born in 1887 so I guess this would be early 1920s.
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.
'Hastings' DEMU 1033 on 1O10 1355 Exeter to Brighton at Platform 4 Exeter St Davids. 30th November 1974.
Ilford FP4 1/50 F5.6. Coloursied with Gemini AI. Not a perfect result, but good enough to revive memories of Saturday afternoons on the end of Platform Five!
City of Oxford AEC Renown 334 at the railway station on 14 June 1975. A Google Gemini AI colourisation from a black and white original.
Fujica ST701/55mm
5063 Earl Baldwin with the1V53 at Yate 25/7/64
The holiday train for the South West takes the junction from the MR line onto the GW South Wales main line enroute to the Bristol Temple Meads avoiding lines
Repost after AI colourisation of scan
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