How colourisation actually works
A black and white photograph only records tone: how light or dark each part of the scene is. There is no colour information left to recover, so colourising it is always an act of interpretation rather than restoration. A skilled colourist, or a trained AI model, looks at the shapes, textures and context in the image and predicts plausible colours for skin, sky, foliage, brick and fabric based on what those things usually look like.
Modern AI colourisation tools work in much the same conceptual way as a human colourist, just faster. A model trained on millions of colour photographs learns the typical colour associated with tones and textures, then applies that learned knowledge to your greyscale image, adding colour that sits naturally over the original brightness and shadow detail.
What to expect from the result
Some elements colourise reliably because there's less ambiguity: skin tones tend to fall in a narrow, predictable range, and sky is almost always some shade of blue or grey. Other elements are pure guesswork. A model has no way of knowing that a jumper was actually maroon rather than navy, or that a front door was painted green. Treat those choices as an artist's best guess rather than a fact.
- Skin and sky: usually convincing and close to reality
- Grass, trees and foliage: reliably green, though the exact shade is a guess
- Clothing, paintwork and fabric: plausible but essentially invented
- Faded or damaged areas: harder for any method to read correctly
Prepare the scan before you colourise
The quality of your starting scan matters more than the colourisation method you choose. Scan the print flat against the glass, under even lighting with no glare or shadow, and at the highest resolution your scanner offers (300 dpi is a reasonable minimum for a small print; go higher if you plan to print the result larger). Crop out borders and mounts, and straighten the image so it isn't skewed.
If the original photo has scratches, creases, tears or heavy fading, it's worth restoring it before you colourise it. Colour is added on top of the existing tonal detail, so any damage in the black and white version will still be visible, and sometimes exaggerated, once colour is applied.
Manual colourisation in an image editor
If you want full creative control, colourising by hand in an editor such as Photoshop or GIMP is entirely possible, just slow. The typical approach is to work on separate layers for each area (skin, hair, clothing, background), set each layer's blend mode to something like Colour or Soft Light so the original tonal detail shows through, then paint in your chosen colours with a soft brush and adjust opacity until it looks natural.
Done carefully, a single portrait can take anywhere from thirty minutes to several hours, depending on the detail in the image and how experienced you are with layer masks and blending. It's a genuinely satisfying skill to learn if you enjoy the process, but it isn't a quick fix for a stack of old family prints.
Colourising with AI, step by step
- 1.Scan or photograph the original at the highest quality you can manage
- 2.Restore any scratches, creases or fading first if the photo needs it
- 3.Upload the cleaned black and white image to a colourisation tool
- 4.Review the result and compare it against any colour details you actually remember
- 5.Download the colour version and keep your original black and white scan safely too
Pitanga Labs' colourise black and white photos tool automates this process for 3 credits, giving you a finished colour version in a couple of minutes rather than an afternoon of manual layer work.
Telling the family it's an interpretation
Printing and sharing the finished photo
Once you're happy with the colour version, a good quality photo print or framed enlargement makes a thoughtful gift, especially for a milestone birthday or anniversary. Keep a full-resolution digital copy as well as the print, and back it up in at least two places (a cloud drive and an external drive is a sensible minimum) since these files are often irreplaceable.
Bringing the photo further to life
If you want to go a step further than a still colour image, some tools can also add subtle motion, a gentle blink, a small turn of the head, to a colourised portrait afterwards. It's an optional extra rather than something every photo needs, but it's worth knowing the option exists once you've got a colour version you're happy with.
Do it with Pitanga Labs
The Colourise Black & White Photos tool adds natural, context-aware colour to your scanned photograph for 3 credits, with no editing software or layer skills required. Upload a PNG, JPEG or WebP up to 10 MB and download the result in minutes.