A 1919 Paige Touring Car, colorized with some liberties

With some colorizing liberties, recreated the scene in the vintage photo on a sunset setting, putting some lens flares on the car body and the glint of the sun rays on the some surfaces on the house and car. 

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.

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.