ary Eva Noonan (Soapy Smith's wife) colorized and animated
Much of this information is a repeat of what I wrote when I posted the colorized and animated video of Soapy.
We live in amazing times. Just a short time ago coloring a black and white photograph had to be done by the human hand, and those who could do it, charged a hefty price for the task of colorizing an old photograph. Just a very short time ago, computers were not advanced enough to decipher sections of two dimensional photographs. They could not figure out what sections of a picture were human skin, dirt, grass, or water, let along their color. But today there are computer programs that can clean up a photograph, color it, and animate it, and do it in less than a minute. Some of the work I've done with this program is stunning. Others, not so much. The program is not perfect yet, but it will improve rapidly. The colorizing is great, but can make the photograph a little too colorful, almost cartoonish. I find that the black and white animated photos look the best in most cases. Everything depends on the original photograph and how the program "defines" it. In my experience the animation program has a hell of a time with hats, big hair and beards, making them "move" or distort as the face turns. You just have to play with it, and by that, I mean have lots of photographs handy and a photoshop program for cropping, adjusting colors, etc. With all the "problems" I am not disappointed with the program. In fact, I am having a little too much fun with it.
We live in amazing times. Just a short time ago coloring a black and white photograph had to be done by the human hand, and those who could do it, charged a hefty price for the task of colorizing an old photograph. Just a very short time ago, computers were not advanced enough to decipher sections of two dimensional photographs. They could not figure out what sections of a picture were human skin, dirt, grass, or water, let along their color. But today there are computer programs that can clean up a photograph, color it, and animate it, and do it in less than a minute. Some of the work I've done with this program is stunning. Others, not so much. The program is not perfect yet, but it will improve rapidly. The colorizing is great, but can make the photograph a little too colorful, almost cartoonish. I find that the black and white animated photos look the best in most cases. Everything depends on the original photograph and how the program "defines" it. In my experience the animation program has a hell of a time with hats, big hair and beards, making them "move" or distort as the face turns. You just have to play with it, and by that, I mean have lots of photographs handy and a photoshop program for cropping, adjusting colors, etc. With all the "problems" I am not disappointed with the program. In fact, I am having a little too much fun with it.
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| Soapy and Mary's wedding photo 1886 |
I started with Soapy and Mary's wedding photograph.
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| Enhanced: before and after |
I then cropped Mary's face and used the programs "Enhancer" tool to "clean up" the photo.
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| Mary enhanced and colorized 1886 |
I had to do some photoshop work on her right cheek as the problem "saw" hair, which was not flattering for such a young beauty. I do not know what color Mary's eyes were so I left them brown.
The final enhanced, colorized, and animated Soapy. One of the more annoying problems with the animation program is the creation of black boarders. Sometimes they appear, and sometimes not. I have not figured out how to keep them from appearing.
I have been posting my growing collection of colorized photographs on my "Soapy Smith's Old West" group on Facebook. Drop on by!
Now it's YOUR turn!
The program is located at My Heritage.com.
At the top you will see "Family Tree;" scroll over it and the drop-down
menu will have the "Colorize, Enhance and Animate" tools you will need.
They do have a free trial for using the program.
"If I had the money and the drinking capacity, I'd probably live at a roulette table and let my life go to hell."
—Michael Ventura
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