Colorized photo of a 1919 Chalmers Touring Car in San Francisco, ca 1920

A couple of colorized options for the same subject

Colorized 1960 Plymouth Belvedere

Going back to my first love, colorizing vintage autos. Here's a rather unglamorous shot of a vintage dirt-caked car on a muddied street from a recent rainfall, though it could be mistaken to be a junkyard. Now why did I even bother colorizing one? This 1960 Plymouth Belvedere is the hardtop version of the sedan my father used up until my late elementary. And in the same color - black. I just love those tail fins and the headlights framed by angry-bird looking "eyebrows".

 

Colorized Senator Wetmore & Wife in a Horseless Carriage c1906

This is a colorized vintage photo of a US Senator and his wife riding a Krieger Electric Landaulet (referred to as a "horseless carriage") dated 1906.  Significant guesswork went into the colorization, covering the color of the vehicle, the time of the year, with autumn colors preferred, and the colors of the cloths of the people depicted.

Colorized Autry Family in a Winton Touring Car circa 1915

Here's a vintage Autry family portrait in a luxury Winton Touring car taken in 1910. The pioneering Cleveland-based Winton Motor Carriage thrived from 1897 to 1962. The beach is Old Orchard Beach in Maine,  The Everingham house is a  landmark at the time. at the corner of Seawall and Union Avenue   The house on the left remains standing as seen here

Yellow would seem like a good color choice, but I already made one and it would not stand out from the sandy beach color. So I experimented with white. just to be close to the vintage original where the car and the beach have about the same monochromatic registration. Just like black, white is another uninteresting non-color though the various shades that can create details can be a challenge on its own, such as the Library of Congress and the NY Grand Central buildings that I did earlier. I played around and settled with off-white that has slight greenish hue. This gives the car some character without being aggressive. Now whether the real Winton model used that color is another matter. On the side, this is another colorization where I spent more time on the background than on the main subject.

Front seat: chauffeur on left, James Lockhart Autry, III. on right. Back seat left to right: James Lockhart Autry, II, Allie Kinsloe Autry, and Allie May Autry.

Colorized 1929 Graham Paige Coupe with Two Ladies in a Park

This is among my first vintage car photos i colorized and which I can now form as part of a series. While I don't usually like colorizing inanimate objects, cars with occupants create a more interesting subject than standalone cars.

Colorized 1920 Herbert E. French in a Packard touring car at the Library of Congress

Original Vintage Photo

This is a vintage photo of a certain Herbert E. French in a Packard Touring card  in front of the Library of Congress circa 1920.

Colorizing Options
Differentiating the various shades of white and grey for the backdrop was the main challenge. As usual, colorizing the car is open tovarious options, but decided on a red hue. This was one of the few colorization efforts with a second variation.  This time on a night time or dusk setting and using one of the Photoshop filters on rending lighting effects.

Colorized 1919 Haynes touring car with Family Passengers

Original Vintage Photo
Here's  a  vintage photo of the 1919 Hayes Touring at a California park (maybe the Golden Gate Park).

Colorizing Options

There would be no end to it if I could have my way.  I might be colorizing the same photo or portrait a thousand times and each one would offer a great visual experience. But I just have to make a conscious choice and sadly reject other equally wonderful coloring options. Black is often the least preferred options for colorizing a major photo element which in case is the car.  But for some reason, I chose black for the car body which allowed the little girl occupant in baby blue dress to stand out. Well, she would also stand out in pink.

Unfortunately, the outcome wasn't really as strikingly colorful as I wanted and a bit cold.  So rather than changing the color of the car, I made another version using autumn colors.  This was just one of the few instance when I made two colorized versions of the same photo. I have made a few others but the other options remained unfinalized. Take note, spring and autumn colors register about the same greys when desaturated for a black and white photo.

Detailing Options

There are many detailing options a colorizer can do when working with faded and "dirtied" vintage photos,  I am not a photo restoration expert but would prefer to restore a possible reality behind the photo, rather then merely restoring the photo. My interest is arriving at a satisfying outcome (to me), not maintaining any historic accuracy where historicity is not important.

Depending on the subject, I sometimes add details that are not there or imagine it as hinted in the photo.  I tend to manipulate or edit the vintage photo.  It's fun to do and throws out the window any claim to historic authenticity when such qualities are not really important to the subject  Hence, this colorization work on the ladies of what was labeled the Age of Jazz Vagabonds dated in 1921 added details that probably did not even exist at that time.  I don't now the car, nor the ladies (but have seen them before in another colorized photo in another car and pose) and wantonly added details that made it look more interesting on close inspection. Not perfect though as I am still polishing the detailing aspect.  If you compare this with the original below, you can easily see what I have added.  I could add more, but just got too tired to go the distance.

Colorized Mitchell Touring Car at the Golden Gate Park (circa 1920)

 Apart from old portraits, my favorite subjects to colorize are vintage cars.  I used to have a collection of die-cast vintage cars from Matchbox and later of 1/18 models and enjoyed photographing them against dioramas I would build. Well, I think it's cheaper to just get hold of vintage photos of these cars that are already in the Public Domain and colorize them to create a possible reality behind the photos. There are so many color choices to make and I just have decided on this one for the Mitchell Touring car taken at the Golden Gate Park sometime in the early 20s.