Adding Color to History
Using AI to colorize archival photos of the Community
Hey, remember that project I did where I found a whole bunch of photos and put together that O’otham and Pee Posh picture archive?
Pepperidge Farm Remembers.
Well, I did just a bit more than gathering the photos…. I also colorized them.
What Is Colorization?
Colorization is a technique to add color to black and white photos. You likely already read my post on creating the photo database, if you haven’t go check it out.
There are a lot of ways to colorize photos, but I chose to use an AI system to do it in large batches.
Some folks will hand-color pictures, but it takes a lot of time and a pretty in-depth understanding of colors….
So I used an AI model called DDColor to colorize them instead.
DDColor is an open-source model designed for photo colorization. If you ever use one of those colorizer programs online or do it through something like Ancestry or Family Search — this is similar. I downloaded the model and its weights onto my computer, set up a Python environment, and ran batch processing across the full set of photos.
It wasn’t … easy. I had to troubleshoot a lot of compatibility issues, the scans kept failing to load because of inconsistent image formats. A whole lot of stuff to fix…
Anyway I got it done, got them processed. Some of the images didn’t come out well, but I’d say like 80-90% of them came out looking pretty good.
I then uploaded the colorized versions into Airtable.
AI? OMG NO, OUR DATA!
Hol’ up! Let me explain.
I tried my best to keep these photos out of the hands of the major AI companies by using local tools on my computer. The photos were not uploaded to any janky online systems. The model ran entirely on my machine.
I’m doing my part, but knowing how AI companies work, I’m sure they have long scraped these images from the archives where they’re already publicly posted.
Still, I tried =)
Why do this?
Because I can, mainly.
Because as much as black and white photos are cool, there is context you miss if you don’t think about how much color was part of our history.
Maybe it’s just my own brain, but seeing color helps me see photos in a new way and pick out details I missed before. I’m hopeful they might have the same effect for others, helping people view these photos from a new angle.
But HOW do I see the pictures?
That is a very thoughtful question - if you go onto the database the should be in the gallery. Below is a video that helps show how to see the color version if it is available.
You should be able to mouse over it:
Want to ONLY see the pictures with color? Check out this quick tutorial on setting filters or sorting below
And reminder - you can check out just the gallery HERE or the full data set HERE
*NOTE - this doesn’t work well with mobile - sorry. If you are on a phone or tablet, use the full data set to browse the photos instead. Someday I’ll make time to figure out a way to get it to work. Someday…
Ways to Make It Better
The main issue is that free colorization models have some limitations. Or maybe I just need to learn more. But there were some issues in these photos.
Some didn’t get colorized at all, some came out in very strange colors, and some got really weird and wonky.
But… it was free, it was fairly fast, and I think the results came out looking pretty good. Good enough, at least.
Just keep in mind this is a version of what the colors might have been - but it is an interpretation… not exact. The system is trying to interpret colors based on shades, so different model weights create different colors.
Still, I think it adds a cool dimension to the photos.
Final Thoughts
There isn’t much to wrap up here. Mostly I want to encourage you, dear reader, to take a look at these photos and remember that our ancestors were not living life in some monochrome, dreary reality. We were colorful people with bright, vibrant lives.
Also keep in mind that not all AI is killer robots and sucking up water. Especially for smaller local projects, we can do this stuff on our own and minimize the environmental impacts while also putting cool stuff out into the world.
Just one example of AI being a pretty cool tool.
Hope you enjoy - here are some samples:
