Historic photos get a color makeover (20 Photos)

December 20, 2012 | In: Awesome, Interesting, Photography

18-year-old Artist Mads Madsen has an amazing skill for colorizing old black and white photographs. Even beside their original counterpart the results are impressive, bringing a new dimension of realism to historic images. An American Civil War buff, Madsen’s 450+ portfolio of images can be seen on minus.com.

Madsen says it takes him about 20-30 minutes for a portrait but that the outdoor shots and images with lots of people and background take substantially longer. For a video tutorial of the process involved, you can check him out on YouTube.

: Albert Einstein

: American Civil War Portrait

: Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch

: Charles Darwin

: Charlie Chaplin

: Civil War Portrait

: Darius N. Couch

: Abraham Lincoln

: Frederick Douglas

: George Henry Thomas

: Mark Twain

: Gershon Mott

: Grover Cleveland

: American Civil War Portrait

: Joseph Hooker

: Migrant Mother

: American Civil War Photo

: Samuel Arnold

: Winston Churchill

: Albert Einstein

Via Twistedsifter

http://echogeo.wordpress.com/ echogeo

Not that this has anything to do with this topic, but I wanted to say Merry Christmas to Taylor Morris & his girlfriend Danielle, while I was thinking about them. Hope all is well.

Dan

Good man
TheSaxMan

They should make an update about them and what happened to the money and how awesome the house must've been
LaF310

Quite possibly the best first comment I've read. Thank you
davo

..and you wanted a cheap way to get a lot of thumb ups. for shame

ovad

…or a small pay it forward?

nbree

I believe she's his wife now.

slany

Impressive
Matt

Once you go color… You never go back
Hrdwood

#4 Colorized Charles Darwin???? Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle…

Verbal_Kint

It's the other way around…

Hrdwood

True, but you haven't seen how ugly my nephew is…

Verbal_Kint

Touche!

RatedR401

well done!
tv_paul

Maybe they didn't colorize it all, it just evolved that way

Hrdwood

So you're saying it was just naturally selected to survive its inferior monotone ancestry?

tv_paul

Yes, it just developed that way on it's own.

Verbal_Kint

Image > adjustments > hue/saturation

ATrapAtNoon

Yeah…no.
ATrapAtNoon

Try…Duplicate base layer twice, select your bottom layer and apply a heavy Gaussian blur, then select your top layer and Image > Apply Image, "subtract", scale: 2, Offset: 128, source: bottom layer, then set you top layer to "Linear light".

Then, create a new layer in between the two and start painting in your color. If there was just a filter to do it, a lot more people would be doing it!

Verbal_Kint

CMD+Q

ATrapAtNoon

Good to see you've found a command worthy of your Photoshop skills

Verbal_Kint

I've used every version of Photoshop since 1.0, so I'm reasonable comfortable with it.

ATrapAtNoon

Then you should know better than to think this is a hue/saturation adjustment. Just because you've used something doesn't mean you know what you're doing…

^ That's called "Frequency Separation" – used in the high-end fashion/beauty retouching industry, which I work in…so I'm reasonably comfortable knowing the difference.

Hell, I've played every Call of Duty game made, but I still get lit up like a noob half the time.

Verbal_Kint

Yeah, everyone gets you're a genius and I'm a clearly a neophyte. You win, well done.

ATrapAtNoon

*slow clap* Passive aggression for the win!

I'm just calling your bluff, man – don't go saying you know what you're doing without being able to back it up. Bustin' chops…

Verbal_Kint

It's not about passive aggressive, you're hell bent on flexing your brain for everyone and dismantling a casual comment. With layers, feathered selections, overlays AND hue / saturation, you could get similar effects. I wasn't writing a tutorial.

ATrapAtNoon

It's not about flexing my brain…anyone can google how to do it. That's like insisting that you can build a house with a hex wrench. Sure, you can do it…but why go to all that trouble?

My comment wasn't to "dismantle a casual comment", but rather to say, "It's a little more complicated than that" for all the thousands of people that think Photoshop is a magic program that you just "click' and things happen. As a Photoshop user yourself, you should be aware of that…
Verbal_Kint

Fair enough.

/ Shakes hands and orders 2 beers.
ATrapAtNoon

Make it two apiece, and it's on me.
Verbal_Kint

Cheers.
ATrapAtNoon

I fucking love Chivers. KCCO, mate. Goddamn best people there are.
Verbal_Kint

Also, i fucked up. I left out “check colorize” play with hue saturation and lightness sliders.
Woop

Best thread ive read all week. Although you guys are the intelligent chivers. Jimmy in chiver back there trying to play with his eye of sauron is your regular chiver. Just keeping it real.

Slappy

You must've designed some of those sweet shirts in the contest!

habsfanx

#4 …. by far the most amazing

ScruffyNerfherder227

Is it just me or does it look like he and George Carlin could have been brothers?

Woop

It's just you.
InfectedArchitect

To me he looks like the preacher from Hell on Wheels.

http://echogeo.wordpress.com/ echogeo

#13
Andy Reid look-a-like?

Steve

Nope. zach galifianakis

Jason

President Shinra.

Ears

No way, Grover has a neck.

Macro

The first Einstein is pretty good, but the rest are clearly a little too desaturated as a way of getting around it. Nice work either way.

TXTNX

Nice effort for an amateur but more than half the images are not completed. Backgrounds, floors, scratches, color consistency, shading and lighting, etc. are not always addressed or improved upon and the image loses depth as a result.

Jakeman

Will not bang.

http://ColorizedHistory.com Mads Madsen

He used some of my earlier work, I have learned a lot since then. My most recent one is the one of Joseph Hooker.

Kyle429

#19 This one of Churchill looks real. like it could've been shot in color. That is amazing.

gazt

Sir Winston Churchill

Calvin

I don't believe this. My dad told me that the whole world was black and white back then. It changed to colour in the early 20th century. All the old photos look black and white still since the photos are actually colour photos of black and white images.

Emily

correct
Hobbes

Shouldn't you be concentrating on homework instead?

Swizzle dick

#5 that is scary. I won't be sleeping later
Cgyachilles

#4 is it just me or does Charles Darwin look a lot like the preacher from hell on wheels?

Pat

I thought he looks more like Jerry Sandusky before he snuck into the boys locker room.
trotterman

Sweet Jesus. Now I can't unsee it.
FoolOfATook

I was thinking George Carlin, but you're right.

Dave

what a load of crap.

trotterman

Your mom's a load of crap.

http://ColorizedHistory.com Mads Madsen

burn

Eder

Hater's gonna hate.
Oltimey

Those that can do…Those that can't troll.

MonkeyMadness

#9 Pretty much just colored the face and hair. These aren't bad, but I know people who do much more detailed work in coloring. And of course they spend a lot more than 30 minutes doing it too.

NYCDXT

I agree. While these image revisions may deserve some recognition, I think that the photographs become cartoonish and lose their overall appeal. Some appear incomplete.
http://ColorizedHistory.com Mads Madsen

Lol. I like that. Of course it's just colorized face and hair, I just slapped a blue suit on him, gave his hair the grey faded color I estimated it had, and colorized his face in. You're not considering the 11 different colors I used for the face, or the 3 different colors I used for the hair. When you've been practicing for 2 years you get to a point where speed is simply just there, it's not something you try for.

I can bust a portrait (Something like this) out in about 20-30 minutes, and that is because it's such a simple portrait, there aren't any details to pull out, outside of some grey hairs here and there, and there aren't any differing hues in grass or uniforms amongst a group of soldiers, it's a simple, seated portrait.

Not Impressed

Dude, get off your high horse, you're not THAT good. In this picture you didn't even give him a "blue suit". You just colored the face and hair. Youe skin tones are pasty and eye coloring is amateurish. I've used cheapo programs and got the same results as you have here.
You talk like you think you're a master at it, well, you're not.

http://ColorizedHistory.com Mads Madsen

I'd love nothing more than to see your results, my good man.

Armakane

Either someones monitor needs calibrating or their rods and cones are a little messed up…looks pretty shades of blue to me.

J.D.

Is there a reason that "Civil War Portrait" is twice not identified as Robert E. Lee?

Verbal_Kint

Because this post was sponsored by the Union.

Telephone Man

Lee was actually recruited by the Union to command the army. He thought it would look bad for him, being a Southerner and all.

http://ColorizedHistory.com Mads Madsen

Not exactly what happened. Winfield Scott was, in 1861, too old and quite simply fat to command an army, he couldn't ride a horse nor inspect anything, so he decided to offer the command to -then- Colonel Robert E. Lee, the 'Finest soldier he had ever seen', in his words. On that same day, Virginia, his home-state, seceded from the Union, and Lee went to Scott's home to discuss it with him, and he decided to turn down the command, and resigned from the United States army, and offered up his services to the Confederate Government.

Jeff

They were unable to identify U. S. Grant as well – he only won the war and was elected President. Easy to forget him…
Kodos

damn yankees

savagecabbage

#19 Legend
woman in parliament: "Mr. Churchill, i think you're drunk
Churchill: I may be drunk miss, but in the morning i'll be sober but you'll still be ugly

savagecabbage

Nancy Astor: “Sir, if you were my husband, I would give you poison.”
Churchill: “If I were your husband I would take it.”
Jeff

the original of this photo was done by Yousuf Karsh: the story goes that Churchill, famous for his cigar smoking, was puffing away on a cigar for this photo shoot when Mr. Karsh walked up and plucked the cigar from his hand and threw it in the garbage. Hence, the scowl that Churchill is giving the camera!

Porkins

Abraham Lincoln had blue eyes!? I did not know that! #8

http://www.facebook.com/mads.madsen.7796420 Mads Madsen

I attempted to make them as gray as humanly possible, but I didn't do well.

Oltimey

He's like a human instagram! Very cool.

http://ColorizedHistory.com Mads Madsen

Lol, thank you Timey. .
Bao

great response. lol

http://ColorizedHistory.com Mads Madsen

I do try, my good man.

jasgat66

#3 Damn good dressers
Dave

#2 and #17 are both pictures of Robert E. Lee

Lionel Hutz

Yea I was gonna say the same thing. Pretty sad that they werent able to name one of the most important people in our history

Meh

Seriously. I got angry about that too.

Thrill

#17 is the General with his sons

http://ColorizedHistory.com Mads Madsen

Son, not plural. The fella on the right is Colonel Walter Taylor, Lee's Aide-de-camp.

JackBurton

These dudes must be dipchits if they don't know what General Lee looks like.

J.D.

That was Taft, not Cleveland.

SmokeyTheBear

I apologize for my brain fart.

bryan

that was taft
leafsfan2005

It's really cool that these are in color now – but the b&w versions are nicer photos.
Hooper

Dude, Einstien is tripping balls, look at his pupils!!
Woodbridge

Anyone else notice that everyone has blue eyes (except Frederick Douglas) I doubt that everyone of these people actually had blue eyes

http://ColorizedHistory.com Mads Madsen

Consider the following: He has taken an excerpt of 20 images out of my nearly 500-already done.

Out of these images I have done, most of them have been from the American Civil War, and the majority of these Bob featured did infact all have mostly blue eyes. Robert E. Lee, Lee Jr. Douglass & Einstein all had brown eyes.

Not only that, Woodbridge, the majority of people in this world have a mix of blue and brown eyes, and again, he has only taken a few of my huge amount of images. If you take a look at /r/ColorizedHistory or Zuzahgaming.minus.com you can see it's not as prevalent as you might expect, my friend.

Sam C

hey kid,
shhhhh.
don't take it personal-
this is the internet.
not everyone knows everything about everything.
don't get worked up over the small shit- it will just eat at you.

http://ColorizedHistory.com Mads Madsen

I'm answering his question, Sam. I explained to him why the majority of these images had blue eyes, and I explained to him that they did infact have blue eyes, and I explained where he could see quite the opposite.

Not everyone knows everything, that's true, but you wouldn't know anything without learning either, would you?

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Historic photos get a color makeover (20 Photos)

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