Adding colour to old B&W photos

WeeGord

Well-known member
I have quite a number of old family photos that are black and white that I'm hoping to add realistic colour to. I have no clue how to do so with any apps and a year or two back tried a couple with an online website that you uploaded the photo to and it created a colour copy. This site is no longer functional and so does anyone know any decent websites or apps that have the ability to automatically add colour? Ideally I'd like a free site / app and one that doesn't require a great deal of user input as to be frank, I'm a bit dense when it comes to that kind of thing :). Thank you.
 
I’m a keen photographer and have photoshop but have never done this before. I’m not sure if photoshop will be able to do it. I’ll ask about on my photography pages.
 
I started colouring and repairing old photos using Photoshop a few years ago, it gets addictive and is very rewarding .
No advice other then once you pick up the basics it's pretty easy to do some really good work.
 
Photoshop Elements will do a basic all in one sweep - depends how much detail/precision you want go. You can do it manually in Elements as well. Examples from the auto colourising using Elements attached

Some on line apps do a decent job but are payable.
 

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Thank you - I have an old Photoshop Elements CD lying around somewhere though I think it'll be quite an old version now. That's a good result with the auto colourising though no doubt about it.
 
Thank you - I have an old Photoshop Elements CD lying around somewhere though I think it'll be quite an old version now. That's a good result with the auto colourising though no doubt about it.
I dont know if older versions of Elements have that facility included.

GIMP is a similar programme and is a free download but I've always found it a handful to use.
 
@WeeGord the same image colourised using an on line version https://playback.fm/colorize-photo as recommended in the latest edition of computeractive magazine
That's a great link @DCI_Gene_Hunt thank you. This is the result I got:-

Scan1.JPG Scan1 (coloured).JPG


That's my great Grandad in Dublin in around 1920 - never got to meet him as he passed away in the early seventies before I was born but have loads of old photo's that need coloured and that site seems perfect. Thank you.
 
My son did some family photos for me. It looks like he used My heritage to add the colour. It is quite subtle and looks to have worked well. There is also a way to animate the pictures, but that is a bit weirdFile 13-09-2019 at 16.15.48 70-Colorized.jpg
 
Here's a couple I did a year back. Not sure the site I did these on still exists or if it does you're now charged.
 

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