Photographer Mario Unger decided one day when looking at an old, damaged picture that he could try to repair it with Photoshop. While the program has some repairing algorithms in it, such as noise reduction or despeckling, those wouldn't do what he wanted to do for the shots he had in mind, which might be missing large patches of the image or faded by age.
Some of his results can be seen here at My Modern Met, and they're really fascinating. In some of the images, he's also added color in order to bring them even more life. I'm a sucker for stuff like that. We always have the idea in the back of our minds that the world shown by early photography lacked color, because all of the pictures were in black and white. Skilled and proper colorizing can show that world was as bright and varied as ours, and open a window to the past that's useful to contemplate.
Oh wow. I wonder what the story is behind the woman and girl on the porch swing - in some ways, the colorized photo looks so MODERN. But then....the woman has a blanket labeled "White Star Line" (the line that ran the Titanic) on her lap. Survivors? Someone who lost a loved one in the disaster? Fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI wondered that too -- and what the story was for the woman with the rolled-up sleeves, as well as the old bearded man...
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