Adding color to images and video's is something people have been doing for decades. However, only "adding color" has been possible, meaning, the person adding the color to the black and white image must decide on what colors they think things should be before adding them to the image. For example, if they have a black and white picture of a group of trees in a park, they would pick a shade of blue for the sky, a shade of green for the leaves on the trees, a shade of white for the clouds in the sky, and so on. After the colors are pre-selected, they're then added to the black and white image manually. One of the earliest modern examples of this is from the 1939 major motion picture "The Wizard of Oz". All the color in that film, and many others, were pre-selected and added to the film after it was shot in black and white.
The downside of adding pre-selected colors to black and white pictures should be obvious...when you're viewing the colorized picture, you never see the true colors as they really were when the picture was taken. You only see colors that someone thought would look right based on judgement, not accuracy. Colorizing photos based on judgement can very inaccurate, especially if the person colorizing is guessing the colors, instead of really knowing what colors things are in the photo.
After decades of adding faux colors to black and white images and videos, the time has finally come where colors can now be decided using artificial intelligence instead of human guessing. There are several services that offer A.I. colorization, but I wanted to know which one was best. So I did some testing...
I tried several A.I. tools that promised accurate colorization of black and white photographs, and I found that the 'MyHeritage In Color' tool worked the best. You're allowed to colorize up to 10 images for free. After that, you'll have to pay.
To figure out which tool was most accurate, I selected a picture of myself and converted it to black and white. I chose a picture of myself where I was wearing a blue and gray striped shirt.
Here is the original picture:
Here is the same picture after converting it to black and white:
Now, I will use the 'MyHeritage In Color' A.I. tool to colorize the photo above. Colorizing an image is fast and easy. I simply went to this page (https://www.myheritage.com/incolor) and clicked on the 'Upload' button to upload my black and white picture. Within seconds, an A.I. colorized photograph was displayed. All I had to do was click the 'download' button and here are the results:
If you don't think the results above are impressive, you have to keep in mind that I had no choice but to digitally convert a color photograph to black and white. This will throw off the accuracy during the colorization process. I had to do this because I don't own a black and white photograph where I can say I truly know the accuracy of each color and what they're supposed to be. Instead, I converted a color photograph that I am familiar with into black and white, to have the ability of judging the accuracy of the colorized final photo.
Photos that were truly shot in black and white will work much better. Here's another test I performed using a true black and white photograph of Marilyn Monroe:
The original photo:
The same photo after colorizing with the A.I. tool:
Colorize your own black and white photos for free by visiting https://www.myheritage.com/incolor
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