Let me know what you think.
You can see some of my results on my reddit page: https://www.reddit.com/user/emilwallner/?sort=top
Black and white photos are - for many of us - part of our shared historical record. Is there really a need to improve (=change) them? Can't we appreciate them exactly as they are, without modifications?
Same with the facial expressions in old photos. People look pretty serious but that's just because of the technology pf photography back then. People were as silly and joyful as nowadays.
Life (time) doesn't tend to stand still, either, yet we are able to appreciate photographs.
Would we really benefit from old photographs being AI-animated into "videos"?
Perhaps I'm showing my age, but the older I get the more I feel at one with life's imperfections. I'm fine without filters and HDR ... or colour ... or motion.
This is a known misconception. People on old pictures are not smiling because they liked it this way, not because of long exposure times. Same for paintings. Except for Mona Lisa, you were supposed to be dead serious when being immortalized on picture for generations to come.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand-colouring_of_photographs#...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand-colouring_of_photographs#...
It depends on the photo, obviously, but colorization can also give a new dimension of contrast to a photo, even if the colors aren't strictly accurate, by separating out the foreground from the background better.
Impulse? A strange word to choose. Impulsive behaviour isn't what I'd aspire to, or want others to aspire to. Be thoughtful.
Yes, there is. They offer a specifically degraded perspective into the past - namely, the loss of color. I do appreciate them as they are, and I also think that the effort to use them as inputs for current technology is also very interesting. I think that seeing these photos, the past in color, helps to humanize the subjects of the photo, and see them, and their environment in a more accessible, realistic way.
I'd like to present this collection of real color photographs that date far back - I think they are really interesting to look at, because we're so used to the black and white version of the clothes, technology, buildings from back then.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/oldest-c...
Amazing work.
But I would be dead scared if I was a professional[2] who did this full-time. Is this what AI taking your job feels like?
The tool seems to struggle with fabrics, but that part is by far the easiest to fix with a traditional photo editor.
Congrats man. You made my mom happy this evening. Please keep a free tier on your tool.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jazzing_orchestra_19...
This one generates the string instruments with the correct colors.
What about a conversation, like, "the dress isn't blue, it should be orange", doing on top of previous prompt?
A better AI model helps a lot with the first goal, but help only so far with the second one. Truth to be told, there is a lot of contextual color information in black and white photos that an AI model can exploit; but nothing beats someone that knows, for sure, the color of the dress of someone in the photo.
I mean, take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/ColorizedHistory/ - some of those color artists do a lot of research to know the exact shade of green of the military uniform of some country in the 19th century, and things like that, just to have an accurate reference.
So I think that the ability of directing the color output (either by rejecting a color textually, or by painting over the figure with a starting point - even if maybe I'm not painting with the exact tone or texture but a rough color that should help the AI to figure out the details) is essential for a colorization product, even if the model is flawless!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/21/7e/16/217e161c9e6cfe74861b...
It did not do so well with this grainy photo of soldiers w/ a captured German flag:
https://i.redd.it/hbus98dh8sfz.jpg
If you use the "vintage charm" filter it does a good job with the flag raising at Iwo Jima:
https://blog.uspatriottactical.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/0...
Here is the B&W photo I tested with (I think "base" or "ambient historic" palettes are best):
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ppnklwWgzIE/TYub-kkx8cI/AAAAAAAAA...
Here is an similar, actual color, photo:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gzlivCEVuMk/VPzsJUVlYMI/AAAAAAADm_...
Original: https://i.imgur.com/9CZ7vk1.png
Base Palette: https://i.imgur.com/iTq5H9W.jpeg
I love this technology but it would feel kinda terrible to upload a whole bunch of stuff to your site and exploit your generosity.
Your results look much better than the washed out AI colorization that I've seen in the past.
I think you could charge money for this service.
A suggestion for something fun to do / marketing tool: recolorize this video frame-by-frame https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ1OgQL9_Cw
Feature request: colorize B&W comic books. I really want to create a full color book of Calvin & Hobbes comics. (Not for publication)
Although, I'd recommend colorizing a few key frames and then use https://github.com/zhangmozhe/Deep-Exemplar-based-Video-Colo...
Cool, yeah, my next model will be better for comic books. You can also use the 'Surprise Me' button in the editor and you'll get some decent results.
Do you have a privacy policy for the uploaded photos? I’m not keen on uploading anything important without knowing how it’s stored or will be used in the future.
still impressed
I decided to go really old, so I tried "Valley of the Shadow of Death" from the 1850s where we get some red and blue cannonballs, but that's fine.
1838 Louis Daguerre photo of paris: https://9ol.es/1838.png
1906 Kite aerial of san francisco after the earthquake: http://9ol.es/1906.png
1895 Montparnasse train wreck: http://9ol.es/1895.png
1920 Wall Street bombing: http://9ol.es/1920.png
1920s Park Row skyscrapers: http://9ol.es/parkrow.png
[1]: https://nitter.lacontrevoie.fr/gwenckatz/status/138165207169...
[2]: see this video by a movie props maker about why Hollywood movies make old things look the way they do in movie https://youtu.be/mF1VFlCnLQ4?t=434
The natural language modifications available in Palette ("his shirt is light blue") are super useful. Well done.
I just colorised some family photos from the 1930s to the 80s and the results are heartwarming.
Thank you for making this and making it free and, most importantly, easy to use.
A couple of bug reports: - Clicking on the P logo on the home page takes me to a page with what looks to be an example, but none of the filters ever load. - Navigating directly to https://palette.fm/color/filters returns a 500.
You may want to check your encoding settings to make sure everything gels together.
Otherwise, great job! This is pretty nice stuff and way better than I could do on my own!
This tool works really well. The text prompt helps, too. The suggested colors leak to surrounding objects (I forced a red skirt on a traditional costume I knew was probably red), but it looks really good.
Did you decolorize pictures originally in color in order to train the model?
Over the years, I've read that a products that's 10x better will be a game changer. I think you have, at least, a 10x better product. Congratulations!
I'll be using your service for my B/W prints. Great job!
Impressive!
Still cool though.
I’ve used to restore the only photo my wife has of her father who died when she was 3yo. She almost cried seeing the colori ed photo, thank you
Now let's colorize b/w works of Albrecht Dürer, or Francisco Goya.
Wish you much success!!
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