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Colorist Produces Amazing Photographs
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Jan 13, 2019 13:04:12   #
Just Fred Loc: Darwin's Waiting Room
 
Brazilian colorist and historian Marina Amaral has been using Photoshop since she was ten. In 2015 she came across some colorized photos on the Internet and began restoring old black and white photos. Her work has received acclaim and experts have declared her work "historically accurate."

See some of them here: https://www.boredpanda.com/colorized-historic-photos-marina-amaral/

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Jan 13, 2019 13:06:22   #
tdekany Loc: Oregon
 
Awesome thank you.

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Jan 13, 2019 14:43:17   #
robertjerl Loc: Corona, California
 
Some of the most realistic colorization work I have ever seen.

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Jan 13, 2019 15:15:11   #
James56 Loc: Nashville, Tennessee
 
Amazing...

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Jan 13, 2019 18:04:58   #
deer2ker Loc: Nashville, TN
 
I just spent an hour looking at these - fascinating!

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Jan 13, 2019 18:57:39   #
E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada
 
Very interesting! Fine work by the colorist.

When I started out in the photography business, colorization of black and white photographs were commonplace in the portrait and wedding studio scene. In the 1950's, Although color photography was already popular in Kodachrome slides and Kodacolor prints at the time, professional photographers were reluctant to offer natural color prints for a number of reasons . In many cases it was cost prohibitive and there was a tendency for the old type "C" prints to fade, especially in larger display portraits. Prints form color negative were decent enough but prints form transparency were usually of poor quality on the type "R" papers of the era.

Black and white negatives were printed in warm tone (chloro-bromide) papers and sepia toned. Papers with a "X" or "Z" textured canvas or burlap-like surface texture were used to provide "tooth" for the colorist's transparent oil paints. Busy studios would have a colorist on staff in their retouching department. Smaller operators would farm the work out to independent colorists. There were a few companies in New York that specialized in restoration an oil colorization for the trade.

Many of the colorists were indeed artists. They worked with special pre-color sprays and varnishes. a variety of transparent and opaque oils, cotton swaps, paper styluses, special erasers and all manner of improvised tools. They could work surprisingly fast to keep up with production, however, the level of work was exceptional in many cases. The final images were somewhat reminiscent of oil paintings but extremely realistic. Of course, a good basic image, well composed, posed, lighted and expertly printed made all the difference.

Wedding albums were mostly in black and white but display formal portraits were oftentimes included in the packages.

Theses colorists were no amateurs, so much sh that the Professional Photographers of America had a special division for them, held competitions and judging and awarded masterships in retouching and print enhancement. There were seminars and workshops where top colorists would reveal their methods of mixing colors for a wide variety of skint tomes and complexions. Once, at a convention, I sat in on one and found it extremely interesting. In one case, the instructor was coloring an outdoor portrait and put subtle green and earthen tints into the flash tone that would occur in an actual color photography. She had slides of Rembrandt paintings to show how the artist included multiple colors in his rendition of skin in that he actually detected this colors in the reflected light. She mention that just using a so-called flesh color, right out of the tube, would produce an artificial coloring book look"

It seems a natural order of events that someone is going to do this work via a computerized program and the nice thing about the work in this link is it has the same subtle tonality and authenticity as the best hand work of the past.

Nostalgia for sure. Funny enough, the Marshall's Company was right near my old neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. Marshall's transparent oils were the go-to set for many colorists. Some would use opaque oils made by Windsor and Newton to replace distracting backgrounds with a brush strokes.

Really nice to see this happening. Thanks to the OP for posting this link!

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Jan 13, 2019 19:00:11   #
Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington
 
Quite fascinating and inspiring. Thanks Fred!

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Jan 13, 2019 19:02:03   #
le boecere
 
Just Fred wrote:
Brazilian colorist and historian Marina Amaral has been using Photoshop since she was ten. In 2015 she came across some colorized photos on the Internet and began restoring old black and white photos. Her work has received acclaim and experts have declared her work "historically accurate."

See some of them here: https://www.boredpanda.com/colorized-historic-photos-marina-amaral/


Excellent! I spent several hours looking at these, and looking up some of the names and incidents.

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Jan 14, 2019 06:55:45   #
FiddleMaker Loc: Merrimac, MA
 
Just Fred wrote:
Brazilian colorist and historian Marina Amaral has been using Photoshop since she was ten. In 2015 she came across some colorized photos on the Internet and began restoring old black and white photos. Her work has received acclaim and experts have declared her work "historically accurate."

See some of them here: https://www.boredpanda.com/colorized-historic-photos-marina-amaral/


Amazing to see original B&W images being transformed into color. Excellent work by Marina.

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Jan 14, 2019 08:27:55   #
kubota king Loc: NW , Pa.
 
This has been one of my great passion for a while now . I love adding color to old and new B&W photos . Thanks for sharing another's colorings .Tommy

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Jan 14, 2019 08:35:31   #
ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA
 
Truly amazing results. I wonder how she decided on the colors and her PS process. Would be interesting. Thanks for sharing.

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Jan 14, 2019 08:43:57   #
cdayton
 
Thanks for posting. Some really amazing work.

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Jan 14, 2019 09:43:00   #
CPR Loc: Nature Coast of Florida
 
That is some very well done work. The actual computer time is tedious and exacting but the research to find out the correct colors is quite a task also.

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Jan 14, 2019 09:53:31   #
StevenG Loc: Long Island, NY
 
Just Fred wrote:
Brazilian colorist and historian Marina Amaral has been using Photoshop since she was ten. In 2015 she came across some colorized photos on the Internet and began restoring old black and white photos. Her work has received acclaim and experts have declared her work "historically accurate."

See some of them here: https://www.boredpanda.com/colorized-historic-photos-marina-amaral/


She has done an incredible job. Thanks for sharing.
Steve

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Jan 14, 2019 10:16:05   #
Redmond Loc: Oregon
 
I love the job that she did, and after looking at all the pictures, I was in awe of the history, the memories, that these pictures represented.

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