I Used AI to Colorize Old Photos—Here’s How It Turned Out
2 min read
Summary
The Internet contains a multitude of black-and-white historical images that, while iconic, are not representative of the colours involved, with AI colourisation providing an opportunity to see these images in a new light.
The article colourises several images using AI, assessing how successful this endeavour was, and offers advice on obtaining the best results, stressed being high-resolution and clearly focused images without excessive noise.
The images included a rustic farm scene, a man wearing a bowler hat, vintage cars, an old fire station, an elderly man with a cane, and a butterfly on a flower.
The colourisation was surprisingly good in many cases, especially with the cars and the man with a cane, but issues were encountered, such as certain areas having an overly antique or sepia filter, being unclear or inaccurate in terms of colouring, and uneven colouring.
The vintage cars and elderly man photos looked notably good, resembling their original forms well, while the fire station was marked by a questionable colouring choice and an antique feel.
The article concludes that while impressive in many cases, the AI is inconsistent and is not suitable for accurate historical representations, instead offering a new way of imagining historical figures and events.
