Colorized Photos of Lincoln

[Jim Page]

Thanks to Laurie Verge, I've been able to contact and enter into a discussion with David Richardson about coloring images of the Civil War era. Mr. Richardson has the Civil War in Color, History in Full Color, and Civil War in 3D web sites.

As you may recall from a week or so ago, we were wondering if the process used in making these color images was different than the process of adding color, based on a best guess, in Photoshop or if there was a different process that "knew" what the actual colors were supposed to be. My contention was that there was no color info in the images themselves; it was all greyscale info.

Here is Mr. Richardson's very gracious and informative reply to my initial email to him; we've had further emails, a phone call, and plan to get together by phone more today:
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Regarding the process. As you suspect, there is no color information embedded in the images. I have however read that it is possible to determine the colors if you know any two of the grayscale values of an image. Since the colors of things like Uniforms, brass buttons, grass, wood, etc. is known, it might be possible with these images. There are computer programs that are supposed to have the ability to interpret the corresponding colors based on the value of the known grayscales. I have not tried it, but the results that I did see looked at best faded and washed out. Who knows, in time it may be completely automated.

The process that I use involves using layers in Photoshop and applying the appropriate color in the right places. This is similar to looking through a tinted or stained glass window and seeing an area in color based on the glass. Once the color layer is applied then the mode setting is changed from “Normal” to “Color” or “Overlay” and the result is a convincing color image.
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Mr. Richardson is a great person; he knows his onions as the saying goes, and I'm enjoying our very cordial conversations! He did the color J.W. Booth image shown in another post and he has a TON of other super work on his websites:
http://www.civilwarincolor.com/
http://www.civilwarin3d.com/
http://www.historyinfullcolor.com/

Now I need to get into contact with Dr. James Cornelius of the Color of Lincoln website to see how he does what he does.

Thanks, Laurie!

--Jim