colorization of Lewis Powell's mug shot

[civilwarincolor]

(08-27-2018 06:42 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  I like the colorized pics too. Are the choices of colrs to use “best quesses?” Or how is a particular color to use decided on?

Speaking from my experience I do a great deal of research for the colors I use. The colors I use have a couple of factors:

1. Standard items. Such as uniforms, grass, brick, sky, etc. We know what they are and can find the color easily. For uniforms I have have images of period uniforms (both Union/Confederate) as well as modern reproductions (which helps with faded uniforms to get the right shades). I keep a variety of Confederate uniform colors since the consistency varied through the war more the Union.

2. Things I can find. There are times when working on an image that I fill find that the items still exists and I can get a picture of it. Examples of this are things like Brady's chair that he posed people in for photos, eye color of historical figure, etc. Sometimes this is just a description. The Surratt house was kind enough to put me in touch the the biographers for each of the conspirators and I was able to get clothing notes from them. The image for Michael O'Laughlen (for example) has his vest being green with purple stripes as referenced from the trial documents. I would not have realized this without the Surratt house.

Other times I have reached out to an expert and they have shared their findings. For example the Lincoln Funeral Car. The original car was destroyed in a fire however some of the windows had been replaced and the ones that had been removed survived. A university professor obtained a paint sample and had run a rather intense study showing the colors used on the original car.

I managed to track him down and convinced him to share the report so I could match the color. He did ask that I keep the report, sample images, study and his contact private, which I have done.

One of my earliest (and best finds) was a member that sent me a reproduction sample of the cloth from Lincoln's chair at Ford's Theatre so I could get the proper shade.

On numerous occasions I have reached out to a museum and asked about the color for a certain item to see of they could give me some idea and when I show them the B&W photo they let me know that the item exists in their collection and they will send me a photo so I can get it right.

Once you get past those there is a large amount of "best guess". This includes things like civilian clothes for non-historical persons, color for jewelry, buildings, etc. For these I will try to do something that is appropriate to the period, but will often decide to do something with a little more color if possible. For example, if I feel the item was probably black, I may make it brown or dark blue, just to add color to an image. If I have several people in civilian clothes I may mix the colors up so that I do not have a bunch of people all next to each other in one color.

Hopefully with the combination of these things that I can bring back much of the color so that you can visualize yourself at that time vs. just looking at a period photo.

Hope that helps answer how I choose color.

David