I've developed an interest in colorizing photos from the time before there was color photography. This one looked like the job would be easy, but the trees were very hard to do because the trunks blend so well with the boughs. I'm not satisfied with the flesh tones but they're the best I could do. One Civil War buff told me the coats should be a darker blue but I think those guys were outdoors for weeks and those coats probably faded. Overall, it's not a more interesting photo colorized but I thought I'd share it anyway. View full size.

Borrowed from Shorpy.

Thought I'd gussy Ms. Leech and her dog residue up a little. View full size.

This was a black and white Shorpy image used in a Fark Photoshop contest back in early August of '09. According to the information in the contest, this is a photo taken in a patent library. I colorized it for my entry and won that contest. View full size.

Just wanted to see whether I could actually colorize this one, as it looked challenging.

I enjoy colorizing old photos in my spare time and have been wanting to try colorizing one that is so large all its fine details can be seen. I found this one on Shorpy at a much larger size than this re-sized version and set to work. I don't know whether my color choices for the vintage ornaments are accurate but perhaps this is how the tree looked. The full size version has much better detail but I couldn't upload that. I'm uploading this in hopes it might give you a look at a splendid Christmas past. View full size.

This is one of my favorite pictures on the site (so far). The scruffy dog and Miss Elizabeth's Mona Lisa smile really make the picture. View full size.

I've seen some colorized pictures here but have never tried one myself. When I saw this picture I thought I'd make an attempt, to see if I could give a feel for what it must have been like to be there. I didn't base my color choices on any actual reference, just what looked OK. It didn't come out as well as I'd have liked, but it's still interesting. View full size.

Nueva Orleans c. 1890. No sé si los tranvías eran rojos o verdes. View full size.

Colorized version of Ben Shahn's photograph of Bill Hensley, a mountain fiddler from Asheville, North Carolina. Like many of our local "hillbilly" music makers, Bill Hensley was probably self-taught, could not read music but could play tunes that were handed down through families and friends for years. The strong Scots-Irish influence in local music is still evident today. View full size.

This is a colorized version of Dorothea Lange's 1937 photograph of an 18 year old mother from Oklahoma in a California migrant workers camp. The colorization seems to magnify the harshness of her life, i.e. her hand and the vacant sadness of her eyes.

You can't help but wonder if her life improved with the lifting of the Depression. What happened with her children and grandchildren? View full size.

This is the coloration of Dorothea Lange's iconic 'Migrant Mother' photo. The stark reality of Dorothea's original photograph is actuated by the addition of color, which I think brings out detail not apparent in the black & white original. View full size.

A splash of color added to Ester Bubley's 1943 photograph of a Washington, D. C. working girl as enjoyed on Shorpy. What were her dreams and aspirations? Was she married or hoping to be married soon? Was her husband or boy friend in the military? What happened to her life after the war? Too many questions, too few answers. View full size.

Tinted version of "Miss Ohio 1850" portrait found here at Shorpy. The portrait is beautiful in B&W and color was added using Photoshop "curves" function on multiple layers as a project for a Photoshop editing class. Skin tones might be a little too red for some. View full size.

When this pretty lady appeared on Shorpy last year I thought the photo would be a good subject for colorizing. I worked on this during December, really for my own amusement, but with the recent spate of colorized Shorpy images I thought it might be interesting to compare.
I used Adobe Illustrator CS3, NOT your traditional photo-manipulation program, and was aiming for the classic hand-tinted postcard effect, not hyper-realism. View full size.

Scanned from a print dated March 23, 1937. Colorized! View full size.