Pictures to Share

Photo Colourisations

Pictures to Share

Since 2005 Pictures to Share have been investigating and researching how the right pictures can benefit people with mid to late stage dementia. They produce photo books that help family and carers continue to communicate with those with advanced dementia in an enjoyable and meaningful way.

Photo Colourisation

Pictures to Share got in touch with Studio 213 when they needed some photographs to be colourised for their new range of books.

As amazing as the black and white photographs are, our memories are in colour. Our mutual aim was to enhance the selection of photographs, and give them that additional bit of detail that could help people recall special moments in their life.

For this particular project, we both decided not to waste time colouring the backgrounds, and instead focused only on the foreground and the subject of the photograph.

Research

A lot more goes into Photo Colourisations than you might expect. A black and white photo holds no clues as to what colours were actually there in real life.

We start every colourisation by first researching as many items in the photo as we can. A good example of this is the record player. We managed to identify it as a ‘Westinghouse Model 45AC1’, and with this knowledge, we could find out the exact colour that it should be.

We also determine a rough date for the photograph, and fit the colour palette around the era. Greens and yellows of the 40s, to browns and oranges of the 70s.