Image Colorization

Broken photos can fully colorize your image and all colorizations are carefully done by a person and not an AI, plugin, or filter set on “automatic”. Realistic and accurate color is our primary goal. You have the ability to select the exact colors prior to the process, or you can let us run with it and make revisions from there.

Colorization is Not New

Adding color to photographs has been around pretty much since the inception of the photographic process. In 1939, black & white silver plate daguerreotype images were presented to the general public for the first time in Paris as an upcoming available product. Before the end of the year, John Baptist Isenring, a Swiss painter and printmaker, was already hand-applying colors to these daguerreotypes to make them feel more realistic and lifelike.

Historically Accurate Color

Research is Important.

Color can add more to the story, especially if it’s accurate. We feel that it is important to try and stay as historically accurate during the colorization process. Not only does it add an element of fact to the image, it becomes a more accurate recreation of that exact moment in time.

Historical accuracy is most important as it relates to school colors, historical events, specific locations, and especially the military. Ensuring the correct colors are applied to service member’s uniforms, insignia, patches, epaulettes, and aiguillettes is paramount.

Research on actual colors is done on almost all of images to be colorized. Most military, historical events and school colors are easily to find, but we may request color selections with you prior to starting the process. We do realize that knowing the exact color in some cases is totally impossible. If you have some ideas but aren’t sure, we can review your image, and then send you some recommendations for specific elements in the photo.

Historically Accurate Color

Image Tinting

We also offer minimal colorization with sepia tints, cyanotypes or vintage watercolor colorization. Converting to sepia, cyanotype changing or correcting the tones, and even converting to black and white is possible.

Sepia Toning

Sepia’s classic brown and burgundy tones in photographs have always been a popular as they add a sense of emotion to what would other wise be a flat black and white image. Sepia photographs are not black and white images that are shifting in tone or due to aging. Sepia toning a classic photographic process that started in the in the mid 1950’s and was popular through the 1920’s.

Cyanotype Toning

Cyanotypes is another old process that was developed in the mid 1800’s. The cameral captured light near the limited ultraviolet and blue light spectrums and the resulting images were varying shades of blue and cyan.

Vintage Watercolor

This technique is a much softer version of the traditional colorization process. Where realism, accuracy of color and perfect placement is crucial in traditional colorization, watercolor is more open and less restrained. Mimicking hand painting techniques that started with old daguerreotype and continued on through the 1960’s, tinting images in the watercolor style gives a more authentic vintage look to the photograph.

Submit Your Image for A Free Damage Assessment

We offer multiple revisions on all colorizations at no charge* so we are always able to give you exactly what you are looking for with your colorized image.