A few weeks ago, one of the public history professors at Coastal introduced me to the fun of colorizing black and white photographs through the MyHeritage app. I was instantly addicted and colorized every black and white I could get my hands on.
I quickly learned that there was a limit to the number of free photos I was allowed. None of the other colorizing apps worked incredibly well and also limited the number of free uses.
I’ve always loved photography and it was a big part of the freelance work I did for newspapers, books, and magazines. I’d been meaning to get around to learning Photoshop more than the automatic settings. So, with two weeks between archival classes, I rolled my sleeves up and started the slow process of learning to digitally restore and colorize photographs.
My Great Aunt and cousin started off well enough in the area of skin tones. Then took a wrong turn. The grass is too green and the house looks spray painted. Back to the drawing board.
This old photo of my great-grandmother was a copy of a picture in poor condition to begin with. My practice on it looks more like I colored it rather than used Photoshop.
I wont’ lie, this can be a slow learning process if you are not already familiar with the program (and I’m not). It can also get frustrating when things are not doing what they are supposed to do (or what I think they should be doing). Or when things take a turn for the cartoonish (Like the door behind my grandparents below).
In all though, I think this is a skill that will serve me well as an archivist and genealogist. I’ve only been at it for not quite a week. Already, I‘m finding it incredibly fun!
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