Author Topic: Why do people want photographs restoring and colouring?  (Read 5001 times)

Offline Avondale16

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Re: Why do people want photographs restoring and colouring?
« Reply #9 on: Wednesday 04 April 18 16:25 BST (UK) »
As a poster who has had a number of old family images literally 'brought back from the dead' by the very talented restorers on RC, for me the repair & particularly the colourisation work has brought new life to old & treasured photos of loved ones. As others have said none of us often know what our older ancestors would have actually been wearing in terms of colour when that photo was taken way back in 1880 & so it is always great to see what the restorers come up with. Like many others I want the original, grubby B&W image but I also want a cleaned up colour version sitting alongside. I don't see that as tampering with family data but enhancing it for future generations.


Keith

Offline Treetotal

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Re: Why do people want photographs restoring and colouring?
« Reply #10 on: Wednesday 04 April 18 16:28 BST (UK) »
The benefits of having a restored version of an old photo of an ancestor means that you can have it on display and preserve the original. Restoring often brings out faded detail that isn't always visible to the naked eye. I think also that people request a coloured version of an old photo, do so to see if there is a likeness to living relatives. It helps them to feel connected to their ancestors.
Carol
CAPES Hull. KIRK  Leeds, Hull. JONES  Wales,  Lancashire. CARROLL Ireland, Lancashire, U.S.A. BROUGHTON Leicester, Goole, Hull BORRILL  Lincolnshire, Durham, Hull. GROOM  Wishbech, Hull. ANTHONY St. John's Nfld. BUCKNALL Lincolnshire, Hull. BUTT Harbour Grace, Newfoundland. PARSONS  Western Bay, Newfoundland. MONAGHAN  Ireland, U.S.A. PERRY Cheshire, Liverpool.
 
RESTORERS:PLEASE DO NOT USE MY RESTORES WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION - THANK YOU

Offline LizzieW

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Re: Why do people want photographs restoring and colouring?
« Reply #11 on: Wednesday 04 April 18 16:57 BST (UK) »
Quote
adding the face of a friend who wasn't able to attend of an event.

We took a photo of our grandchildren at my mum's funeral but, one of them unfortunately couldn't attend as he was taking an exam that day, so I had his photograph inserted so that I had a group photo of the grandchildren.  Of course, since then we've had 4 more grandchildren and the only photo we now have of everyone is one that was taken at our Golden Wedding Anniversary.

Offline JohninSussex

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Re: Why do people want photographs restoring and colouring?
« Reply #12 on: Wednesday 04 April 18 17:31 BST (UK) »
edited to add: Maybe the best folk to answer, are those who put them up  :)
This is the best answer (which is actually just to repeat the original question).  I've always wanted to ask one of the posters why they want (inevitably fake) colour added, but I didn't ask as it would not be the right place.

Over time photos deteriorate & can eventually be lost for good. Repairing them is a way of retaining/conserving the data rather than tampering with it.
Art & building conservation is pretty much the same thing the only difference being that with photos we're dealing with a digital copy not the original.
Colourisation is just the personal choice of the poster & we often get the comment that colour brings the person to life in a way a b & w or sepia doesn't.
I think that everyone would agree that the original is a piece of history however a restored copy makes a better photo for general use.

I have no question about why someone would want an old photo "restored" i.e. the creases or fading taken out, that is proper "restoring" to what the picture would have looked like 100 or so years ago. 

But I find it very odd that people want colour added to a picture that never had it to start with.  That is tampering with history, as surely everyone knows that photography before a certain date was almost entirely monochrome.  That's why you still see today film & TV dramas showing a historical scene shown in B&W.  It would be like taking your great grandparents' love letters and presenting them as a series of text messages or tweets!
Rutter, Sampson, Swinerd, Head, Redman in Kent.  Others in Cheshire, Manchester, Glos/War/Worcs.
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Online jim1

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Re: Why do people want photographs restoring and colouring?
« Reply #13 on: Wednesday 04 April 18 17:51 BST (UK) »
The Victorian photographer wasn't adverse to colouring photos. We often see 1850's/60's Ambrotypes that have been coloured in. Does that make them less a piece of history as a result or does it make them part of it.
One could argue that in a hundred years or so a digitally repaired or coloured copy could also be regarded as part of that photo's history.
Warks:Ashford;Cadby;Clarke;Clifford;Cooke Copage;Easthope;
Edmonds;Felton;Colledge;Lutwyche;Mander(s);May;Poole;Withers.
Staffs.Edmonds;Addison;Duffield;Webb;Fisher;Archer
Salop:Easthope,Eddowes,Hoorde,Oteley,Vernon,Talbot,De Neville.
Notts.Clarke;Redfearne;Treece.
Som.May;Perriman;Cox
India Kane;Felton;Cadby
London.Haysom.
Lancs.Gay.
Worcs.Coley;Mander;Sawyer.
Kings of Wessex & Scotland
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Offline Treetotal

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Re: Why do people want photographs restoring and colouring?
« Reply #14 on: Wednesday 04 April 18 18:06 BST (UK) »
"But I find it very odd that people want colour added to a picture that never had it to start with.  That is tampering with history, as surely everyone knows that photography before a certain date was almost entirely monochrome.  That's why you still see today film & TV dramas showing a historical scene shown in B&W.  It would be like taking your great grandparents' love letters and presenting them as a series of text messages or tweets!"
[/quote]


To answer your Question and in support of Jim's response.....here is one from my collection:

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=749173.msg5969253#msg5969253

Carol
CAPES Hull. KIRK  Leeds, Hull. JONES  Wales,  Lancashire. CARROLL Ireland, Lancashire, U.S.A. BROUGHTON Leicester, Goole, Hull BORRILL  Lincolnshire, Durham, Hull. GROOM  Wishbech, Hull. ANTHONY St. John's Nfld. BUCKNALL Lincolnshire, Hull. BUTT Harbour Grace, Newfoundland. PARSONS  Western Bay, Newfoundland. MONAGHAN  Ireland, U.S.A. PERRY Cheshire, Liverpool.
 
RESTORERS:PLEASE DO NOT USE MY RESTORES WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION - THANK YOU

Offline MartynS

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Re: Why do people want photographs restoring and colouring?
« Reply #15 on: Wednesday 04 April 18 18:24 BST (UK) »
When people were having their photos taken pre-colour cameras - they still had colour vision themselves - so history and the photos we colour are using technology to try and show what they saw. So the flip side question is "would people from the bygones ages have preferred BW or colour photos?" - I would guess they would have loved to have seen themselves in colour :-)


I would also say that there are photos that are so much better in black and white.


Colour photos can look bad - so a colourist has to have a good eye for natural colours.....and yep we get it badly wrong sometimes but when they come out well - a revised BW to colour photo is immense.



Also old films have been converted to colour. I have seen war footage from Vietnam and other wars for example that look just as good in tastefully coloured tones....


I have coloured many old war photos, Victorian and older portraits and there is a huge commercial and non-commercial market for such transformations.


As Carol said earlier, people are literally reduced to tears from photos damaged in fires, floods and often the only photos left. So to offer a restored BW and also a coloured version is a tremendous gift to give....If you can then why not  ???
Restorers : Please do not use my restorations without asking my permission first. Thanks.

Good quality size scans will mean much better restores >> hint hint :-)

Offline LizzieW

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Re: Why do people want photographs restoring and colouring?
« Reply #16 on: Wednesday 04 April 18 18:52 BST (UK) »
Quote
But I find it very odd that people want colour added to a picture that never had it to start with

I was a bridesmaid at my cousins' wedding (yes 2 of them had a joint wedding!) and I have a photo of me and a much older bridesmaid who I don't know.  So I asked the clever Rootschatters if they could remove her from the photo and colour my dress.  I don't think that's odd at all.  Now my children can see what I looked like aged 17 and I can now remember the dress as it was.  Nowadays children take photos of themselves all the time, one of my granddaughters is in Australia for a year and she's taken 1000s of photos of herself, her friends and, of course, the scenery and places she's visited, but we didn't do that in the late 1950s/early 1960s and our ancestors took even less photos than we did, so we want the restorers to work their magic on our photos.

Offline MartynS

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Re: Why do people want photographs restoring and colouring?
« Reply #17 on: Wednesday 04 April 18 19:04 BST (UK) »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_colorization
Documentary make-overs
Colorization is sometimes used on ]
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(34, 34, 34)] programmes. [/color]]
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(34, 34, 34)] TV show colorizes some footage of the band, most notably the performance of "[/color][/size]]
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(34, 34, 34)]" from the TV special [/color]]
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(34, 34, 34)] (1967). In the documentary this scene begins in its original black-and-white before [/color]]
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(34, 34, 34)] into seemingly realistic, [/color]]
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(34, 34, 34)] color.[/color]]
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(34, 34, 34)] The color design was based on color photographs taken at the same time as the special was shot.[/color]
The documentary series]
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(11, 0, 128)]World War 1 in Colour[/color][/i][/size] (2003) was broadcast on television and released on DVD in 2005. There had previously been full-color documentaries about World War II using genuine color footage, but since true color film was not practical for moving pictures at the time of World War I, the series consists of colorized contemporary footage (and photographs). Several documentaries on theMilitary Channel]
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(34, 34, 34)] feature colorized war footage from the Second World War and the [/color]]
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(11, 0, 128)]Korean War[/color]]
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(34, 34, 34)]The 1960 [/color]]
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(34, 34, 34)], originally broadcast in black-and-white and recorded on [/color]]
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(34, 34, 34)], was colorized by Legend Films for the documentary [/color]]
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(165, 88, 88)]Jim Nantz Remembers[/color]]
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(34, 34, 34)]. This was the first time a major sports event had been re-broadcast using colorization[/color]
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(11, 0, 128)]The Greatest Game Ever Played[/color]]
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(34, 34, 34)], the 1958 [/color]]
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(11, 0, 128)]NFL[/color]]
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(11, 0, 128)]Baltimore Colts[/color]]
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(34, 34, 34)] was colorized by Legend Films for [/color]]
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(34, 34, 34)] for a sports broadcast special in December 2008.[/color]


Plenty of films converted to colour......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black-and-white_films_that_have_been_colorized
Restorers : Please do not use my restorations without asking my permission first. Thanks.

Good quality size scans will mean much better restores >> hint hint :-)