JZ Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 Going through some very old family photo's, I pondered on what they would be like in colour. So off I went hunting down a program that would do it automatically. I came across one called PixBim ColorSurprise. Not yet convinced enough to pay $40 for the full version. Here are a few of the trials. The above pictures are around Ophir, Colorado. Dunkerton Colliery Halt Grimstone. Fairly happy with the above pictures, but when I converted some I took to black and white, then used the software to convert back to colour, the results were, to say the least, disappointing. Has anyone any experience of this, or other software that does this? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium iands Posted July 26, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 26, 2020 Interesting. I can see it being a very useful application for general scenic photos, but not sure how accurately it would cope with all the different colour schemes of loco's and rolling stock? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JZ Posted July 26, 2020 Author Share Posted July 26, 2020 Just now, iands said: Interesting. I can see it being a very useful application for general scenic photos, but not sure how accurately it would cope with all the different colour schemes of loco's and rolling stock? I tried one of a Hymek at Bradford-on-Avon. It came out red. Presumably the dirt on the loco caused it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium iands Posted July 26, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 26, 2020 2 minutes ago, JZ said: I tried one of a Hymek at Bradford-on-Avon. It came out red. Presumably the dirt on the loco caused it. Yet the signal arm doesn't come out red & white. As I say, an interesting concept, but I think it would have limited application for converting B&W railway photos to colour. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Harris Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 I am reminded of those 'converters' that someone used to sell in Exchange & Mart, designed to make old B&W TVs look like the (then new) Colour sets, basically they had a blue tinge at the top and green tinge at the bottom. Any software to automatically convert B&W photos must either be a 'state of the art' artificial intelligence that can work out what the subject is and what colour it should be OR makes inspired guesses, the results are "colour", but not always the right colours. Imagine a locomotive like "Flying Scotsman" that has been in several colours over the years, unless the software can know the date of the photo how can it get things right. jch 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JZ Posted July 26, 2020 Author Share Posted July 26, 2020 9 minutes ago, John Harris said: Any software to automatically convert B&W photos must either be a 'state of the art' artificial intelligence that can work out what the subject is and what colour it should be OR makes inspired guesses, the results are "colour", but not always the right colours. Imagine a locomotive like "Flying Scotsman" that has been in several colours over the years, unless the software can know the date of the photo how can it get things right. jch Played around with a few others since my initial post and, in general, diesels tend to come out red. Could be the developer is a fan of the LMS. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold adb968008 Posted June 24, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 24, 2021 (edited) Heres one… Black and white.. converted…to colour heres the original colour image… Good technology, but Ive found unless theres lots of grass, bare wood or obvious black / whites, theres still some way to go yet. What would enhance this algorithm would be colour reference material based on subjects, for instance if I could load a reference colour image and propose colour gradients from that reference image to use in the converted image. Edited June 24, 2021 by adb968008 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derekl Posted June 24, 2021 Share Posted June 24, 2021 I suspect you lose too much texture converting from colour to B&W, so it can't pick up the necessary to reconvert to colour (not really sure why you want to do that, anyway). Interesting how it picks up the rust on the loco and boxcars on the pics above. The conversion of Dunkerton Colliery Halt also looks pretty good to me. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hodgson Posted June 24, 2021 Share Posted June 24, 2021 Some quite effective conversions there even if some are rather less convincing. How does it decide what colour something should be ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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