You’ve probably seen those viral clips on TikTok or YouTube where a grainy, flickering video of New York City in 1910 suddenly snaps into vibrant, living color. It feels like magic. Or maybe you’ve got a shoebox in the attic filled with monochromatic snapshots of your grandparents looking stoic and stiff. Looking at them, you realize you have no idea if your grandfather’s eyes were sky blue or a muddy hazel.
Honestly, the tech to turn black and white photo to color has evolved so fast in the last three years that most people are still using outdated methods that make skin look like plastic or grass look like radioactive neon. It's frustrating.
Old photos aren't just data points. They’re memories. When we colorize them, we aren't just "fixing" them; we’re trying to bridge a gap between "then" and "now." But here’s the kicker: AI doesn’t actually know what color things were. It’s making an educated guess based on millions of other images it has seen. This creates a weird tension between historical accuracy and aesthetic beauty that most "one-click" apps don't tell you about.
The Science of Predicting Pigment
How does a computer even start to turn black and white photo to color? It’s all about DeOldify and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). Basically, you have two AI models. One tries to color the photo, and the other—the critic—tries to spot if it looks fake. They fight it out until the result looks "real" enough to pass.
But "real" is subjective.
Take a military uniform from 1944. A standard AI might see the grey tones and assume it’s a navy blue suit because that’s what most modern suits look like in its training data. In reality, it might have been olive drab or khaki. This is where the human element becomes vital. You can't just dump a file into a generator and expect 100% historical truth. You’re getting a plausible lie.
Why Skin Tones Often Look "Off"
The hardest part of this whole process is human skin. Blood flows under the surface. We have "zones" of color—more yellow in the forehead, more red in the cheeks and nose, and a bit more blue or grey around the jawline. Most basic tools apply a flat "peach" or "brown" overlay. It looks like a mannequin.
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Professional colorists use a technique called "layering." They don't just pick one color. They stack dozens of transparent layers of reds, oranges, and purples to mimic the way light interacts with human flesh. If you're using an AI tool like MyHeritage’s In Color or Photoshop’s Neural Filters, you’ll notice they’ve gotten better at this, but they still struggle with shadows. Shadows in black and white are often just black, but in a color photo, shadows have temperature. They might be cool blue or deep umber.
The Best Tools to Turn Black and White Photo to Color Right Now
If you’re sitting there with a scanned JPEG of your great-aunt, you have a few distinct paths. Each has its own baggage.
Adobe Photoshop (Neural Filters)
This is the industry standard for a reason. Inside the "Neural Filters" menu, there’s a "Colorize" option. It’s scary fast. It uses Adobe Sensei to identify objects—trees, sky, clothing—and applies masks automatically. The best part? It lets you click a specific area and tell the AI, "Hey, this dress was actually velvet red, not grey." It’s a hybrid approach. You get the speed of AI with the control of a human artist.
Palace of Memories: DeOldify
If you’re a bit more tech-savvy, DeOldify is the open-source king. Created by Jason Antic, this project changed everything. It uses a "NoGAN" training technique that prevents the weird flickering and color-bleeding you see in cheaper apps. Many of the paid websites you see online are actually just running DeOldify under the hood and charging you for a fancy interface.
MyHeritage and Ancestry
These platforms are built for genealogists. Their colorization is tuned specifically for old, damaged family portraits. They tend to prioritize making faces look clear and warm, sometimes at the expense of the background. It's great if you want a quick emotional connection, but maybe less great if you're trying to colorize a landscape or a vintage car.
The "Information Gap" in Monochrome
Think about a red rose and a blue sapphire photographed on old orthochromatic film. In the early 20th century, film was mostly sensitive to blue light. This meant red objects often appeared much darker—almost black—while blue skies looked nearly white.
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If you try to turn black and white photo to color without knowing what kind of film was used, you might get the values all wrong. A professional researcher will look at the year the photo was taken, the type of camera likely used, and then cross-reference the actual items in the photo. Was that specific 1952 Chevy painted in "Horizon Blue" or "Sahara Beige"?
This is the "nuance" that AI misses. AI is a generalist. It likes averages. It will give you the most "average" color for a 1950s car unless you intervene.
Dealing with "Silvering" and Physical Damage
You can’t just colorize a mess. If your photo has "silvering"—that metallic sheen that appears in the dark areas of old prints—the AI will think that’s a real texture. It will try to turn it into a weird metallic blue or purple smudge.
Before you even touch the color, you have to do the "grunt work":
- High-Resolution Scanning: 600 DPI at a minimum. 1200 DPI is better if the photo is small.
- Dust and Scratch Removal: Use the "Spot Healing" tool. If you leave a scratch, the colorizer will treat it like a piece of colored string sitting on the person’s face.
- Levels and Contrast: AI needs a clear distinction between highlights and shadows to know where one object ends and another begins.
Steps to Get a Realistic Result
First, don't trust the first result. Most people hit "Go," see the color, and get a shot of dopamine because it looks "better" than the grey. But look closer. Are the teeth slightly green? Is the grass the same shade as the trees?
Start by using an AI tool to get the "base" layer. This handles 80% of the heavy lifting. Then, take that image into a photo editor. Lower the saturation. Real life isn't as saturated as an Instagram filter. Old photos usually look better with a slightly muted palette.
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Focus on the "neutral" colors. If you get the whites of the eyes, the grey of the pavement, and the wood of a fence right, the brain will forgive a lot of errors in the more vibrant colors. It’s called "color constancy." Our brains are weirdly good at filtering out bad colors if the environment feels grounded.
A Quick Word on Ethics
There is a heated debate in the museum world about this. Some historians hate colorization. They argue that it’s a "falsification" of history. By adding color, we are adding information that wasn't there. We are making a guess.
When you turn black and white photo to color, you’re creating an interpretation. It’s more like a historical novel than a history textbook. As long as you keep the original black and white file safe, there’s no harm in it, but it’s worth remembering that the "color" version is a collaboration between you, an AI, and a photographer who is likely long gone.
Practical Next Steps for Your Photos
Stop using the free "AI Colorizer" websites that put a massive watermark on your image and sell your data. If you have a Mac or PC, download the trial version of Photoshop or use a dedicated tool like VanceAI or Hotpot.ai for a one-off project.
If the photo is a precious family heirloom, honestly, consider paying a human restoration artist. They use the AI as a brush, not a brain. They’ll research the specific tartan of a clan or the exact ribbon color of a medal.
For a DIY approach:
- Scan the physical photo; don't just take a picture of it with your phone. The glare from your phone's flash will ruin the AI's ability to "see" the grain.
- Convert the scan to a TIFF file if possible to keep all the data.
- Run it through a "Denoiser" first. AI colorizers hate film grain; they think it’s "color noise" and will create a "confetti" effect of random colored pixels.
- Apply the colorization.
- Fade the color layer to about 70-80% opacity over the original black and white. This lets some of the original's natural contrast and "grit" shine through, which prevents that overly smooth, fake AI look.
Colorization is a tool for empathy. Seeing a great-grandfather in color makes him feel like someone you could have grabbed a coffee with, rather than a ghost trapped in a silver-nitrate prison. Just remember to keep the original. The black and white version is the truth; the color version is the story.