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"Altering primary documents..." No one is altering the original documents. They still exist, right? "actually less accurate (e.g. wrong color instead of no c

"Altering primary documents..." No one is altering the original documents. They still exist, right? "actually less accurate (e.g. wrong color instead of no color)." That's debatable. Why is "no color" more accurate? The world wasn't monochrome.

michaelt 6y ago
> Why is "no color" more accurate? If that person is wearing an air force uniform and you colourise it to look more like an army uniform, or a different country's uniform, you've made it less accurate as it looks like they're in a different branch of the military. If you've got a photo of someone whose hair was white from age, and you colourise it as blonde, you've made them look younger and maybe given them a hair colour they never had. If you've got a photo of a famous scientist or war hero who had a Mediterranean complexion and you colourise them with more of a pale complexion, you've made it less accurate as it looks like they're a different race. (Of course, these sorts of accessibility-accuracy trade-offs aren't unique to colourising photos - they also apply to everything from translations of historical documents, through illustrations and selecting what content makes it into books, to questionably accurate history facts shared on social media)
- animatedb 6y ago
  You may have missed one more part. When you see a black and white picture, you assume that the black, gray and white are not real. When you see color, it biases your brain to think the color may be close to correct.
- Vvector 6y ago
  > If you've got a photo of someone whose hair was white from age, and you colourise it as blonde, you've made them look younger and maybe given them a hair colour they never had. But what about the opposite? What if a B&W photo shows someone with white hair, but his hair was blonde. Now the colorized photo is more accurate than the B&W photo. I just don't think you can claim B&W is more accurate absolutely. > If that person is wearing an air force uniform and you colourise it to look more like an army uniform Do you understand that the typical consumer of this media cannot tell the difference between air force, and army uniforms from 100 years ago? Get people interested in history, then worry about the little details like the color of someone's hair or uniform. Get out of your ivory tower and into the real world. Most people's knowledge of history is abysmal. History is boring, as it is taught in schools today.
  - shard 6y ago
    > Get out of your ivory tower and into the real world. Your ad hominem attack devalued your whole argument. Argue the merits of his points, not your preconceptions of his mental state.
    - ByteJockey 6y ago
      Normally I think you're right about these things, but between the ivory tower comment, and the sentence after, I think there's an implied argument that's pretty relevant to the situation. That argument being that the academic approach hasn't lead to people having a more accurate image of history. It has scared them off and resulted in most of them having almost no knowledge of history. The approach doesn't seem to lead to it's intended goal. The comment was perhaps made a bit crassly, but I think it's something worth considering.

michaelt 6y ago

> Why is "no color" more accurate? If that person is wearing an air force uniform and you colourise it to look more like an army uniform, or a different country's uniform, you've made it less accurate as it looks like they're in a different branch of the military. If you've got a photo of someone whose hair was white from age, and you colourise it as blonde, you've made them look younger and maybe given them a hair colour they never had. If you've got a photo of a famous scientist or war hero who had a Mediterranean complexion and you colourise them with more of a pale complexion, you've made it less accurate as it looks like they're a different race. (Of course, these sorts of accessibility-accuracy trade-offs aren't unique to colourising photos - they also apply to everything from translations of historical documents, through illustrations and selecting what content makes it into books, to questionably accurate history facts shared on social media)

animatedb 6y ago
You may have missed one more part. When you see a black and white picture, you assume that the black, gray and white are not real. When you see color, it biases your brain to think the color may be close to correct.
Vvector 6y ago
> If you've got a photo of someone whose hair was white from age, and you colourise it as blonde, you've made them look younger and maybe given them a hair colour they never had. But what about the opposite? What if a B&W photo shows someone with white hair, but his hair was blonde. Now the colorized photo is more accurate than the B&W photo. I just don't think you can claim B&W is more accurate absolutely. > If that person is wearing an air force uniform and you colourise it to look more like an army uniform Do you understand that the typical consumer of this media cannot tell the difference between air force, and army uniforms from 100 years ago? Get people interested in history, then worry about the little details like the color of someone's hair or uniform. Get out of your ivory tower and into the real world. Most people's knowledge of history is abysmal. History is boring, as it is taught in schools today.
- shard 6y ago
  > Get out of your ivory tower and into the real world. Your ad hominem attack devalued your whole argument. Argue the merits of his points, not your preconceptions of his mental state.
  - ByteJockey 6y ago
    Normally I think you're right about these things, but between the ivory tower comment, and the sentence after, I think there's an implied argument that's pretty relevant to the situation. That argument being that the academic approach hasn't lead to people having a more accurate image of history. It has scared them off and resulted in most of them having almost no knowledge of history. The approach doesn't seem to lead to it's intended goal. The comment was perhaps made a bit crassly, but I think it's something worth considering.