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Not Quite Magic, But Amazing Nonetheless

 
Like many photography buffs, I subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud that provides me a set of applications for editing my images. For all of the years that I’ve been using the computer for photography, I’ve never been a regular user of Photoshop. While I’ve used it on occasion I’ve instead relied on the company’s younger offspring Lightroom for most of my image editing.

As a subscriber I receive regular electronically delivered newsletters about Creative Cloud. A few weeks ago one of the articles drew my interest – colorizing black and white images.

Those of us who grew up taking pictures in the 1950s and 1960s have a large stash of black and white photos – and I have my share. I clicked on the article to find out more about this magical process.

The process involved using one of Photoshop’s built-in filters. Being a Photoshop novice I was unfamiliar with these filters so I had to dig deeper.

Well it turns out that I didn’t have to dig very much. The newsletter explained that the only thing I needed to do was to choose “Neural Filter” from Photoshop’s top menu and then click the “Colorize” button. Instantly – yes instantly – the black and white photo was converted to a color version.

The images are colorized using a best guess model that Adobe employs. The processing is not perfect but most of the images that I tried turned out acceptable. The few inconsistencies that I noticed did not detract from the overall results. And a few of the colorized images exceeded my expectations.

Below are a few of the B&W’s – including some of my favorites – that I was anxious to try.
 


 

Click on any image to see more detail.

 

A photo of my Grandmother and two uncles taken in the 1950s.

The colorized version fails to maintain consistent color of the suits.


A high school photo of a student from the 1960s.

The colorized version is good except the student didn’t use lipstick.


Writer William F Buckley lecturing at the Univ of Michigan in 1969.

Above you will notice that the background does not maintain the same color.


Hockey star Tim Horton sitting in the penalty box at Madison Square Garden about 1964.

The color processing chose blue for Tim’s jersey which happens to be the color of the Toronto Maple Leaf uniform. Good guess.


Singer Ron Townsend of the Fifth Dimension performing in Ann Arbor in 1970

An amazing transformation. I don’t know if the colors are accurate to his 1970’s outfit but they appear authentic.


A snapshot of my wife while we were enjoying nature and the outdoors in 1969.

Photoshop’s choice of colors is less important to me than the warm feeling that I receive from the colorized photo.


 
 
I’m still excited when I find another older black & white photo that I can colorize.

 
 
Written by: Arnie Lee
 
 


 
 

Wearing Many Hats

27th March 2023

Turning on the Studio Lights

 

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve used my electronic studio strobes. I wasn’t even sure that they were still working. So I asked my favorite lovely model if she would pose for a few photos and she kindly accepted.
 
On this day, the outside sky was overcast there wasn’t much light coming through the windows. So I went to work moving the lights into position for the quick shooting session. I was using only two lights – one main light, slightly to the left of the subject and about ten feet away and a second light positioned low and the the right of the subject to illuminate the background.
 
Here are a few of the photos from this session.
 
To see more detail of the lighting and coloring, click on any of the images.















The above photo was taken at a different time using an IR (infrared camera that removes all of the color.


 

There was nothing exciting about my quick session, but I did enjoy working with a model who made these couple of hats look nicely perched.

Written by: Arnie Lee