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No it's not, not really. A diverse data set of black and white images doesn't have any kind of knowledge of the colour sensitivity of the medium in that moment

No it's not, not really. A diverse data set of black and white images doesn't have any kind of knowledge of the colour sensitivity of the medium in that moment. What film was it? How was it processed? Is it a scan of a negative or a print? What was the colour of the lighting? Was a particular colour tint filter used on the lens? Was the subject wearing makeup optimised for black and white photography? The black and white image, standing alone, cannot tell you this, I think. Sure, it might get a bit better at, say, identifying a 1950s TV show. But what is the "correct" accurate colour representation of that scene, when televisual makeup was wildly unnatural in colour?

crazygringo 3y ago
But do people have any of that knowledge either? Most of the time, I don't think so -- they colorize stuff in a way that just "looks right" or "looks natural" or "looks nice" to their eye, that's all. And the dataset an AI is going to train on should be using original color photos that are then converted to B&W across a wide variety of color curves. So it should be fairly robust to all sorts of film types. So again, I repeat that it's probably going to wind up being more accurate with regard to skin tone than a human (with their aesthetic biases) usually would.
- bemusedthrow75 3y ago
  > But do people have any of that knowledge either? Most of the time, I don't think so -- they colorize stuff in a way that just "looks right" or "looks natural" or "looks nice" to their eye, that's all. No, indeed. Which is why doing it by hand is more respectful of the notion that it is subjective. Automatic colourisation is and will be viewed differently, as more "scientific", when it's still absolutely beholden to the same biases and maybe misconceptions that we can't unpick because they come from poor training data. Finally: "original colour photos" are also a problem. Not only for the part of the history where they don't exist. But also for the part of history (until the early 1960s) when the colour rendition of those photos was false or incomplete. You can get a little closer to understanding what that colour looked like, but it's important to understand that colour emulsions vary in the way they work: it's not black and white film with extra colour sensitivity. So at best you will be colourising the black and white film to look like the colour film, which is not reality. And there are well-understood problems with correct representation of skin tones with colour film until the mid-eighties. I can see your point; I just think there's a bigger picture here (pun not intended) that you're not seeing.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    > Automatic colourisation is and will be viewed differently, as more "scientific" Then the solution is to correct that misperception, not deny ourselves a useful tool. > I can see your point; I just think there's a bigger picture here (pun not intended) that you're not seeing. My overarching point is that this is a tool like any other. And the idea that "doing it by hand is more respectful of the notion that it is subjective" I will push back on 100%. There is nothing disrespectful about colorizing a photo, automatically or by hand. But it should always be clearly communicated that it is subjective not objective, whether human or machine. Again, if someone believes the colorization is somehow "real" or "scientific" because a computer did it, then correct their misbelief. Don't stop using the tool. That's the bigger picture here.

crazygringo 3y ago

But do people have any of that knowledge either? Most of the time, I don't think so -- they colorize stuff in a way that just "looks right" or "looks natural" or "looks nice" to their eye, that's all. And the dataset an AI is going to train on should be using original color photos that are then converted to B&W across a wide variety of color curves. So it should be fairly robust to all sorts of film types. So again, I repeat that it's probably going to wind up being more accurate with regard to skin tone than a human (with their aesthetic biases) usually would.

bemusedthrow75 3y ago
> But do people have any of that knowledge either? Most of the time, I don't think so -- they colorize stuff in a way that just "looks right" or "looks natural" or "looks nice" to their eye, that's all. No, indeed. Which is why doing it by hand is more respectful of the notion that it is subjective. Automatic colourisation is and will be viewed differently, as more "scientific", when it's still absolutely beholden to the same biases and maybe misconceptions that we can't unpick because they come from poor training data. Finally: "original colour photos" are also a problem. Not only for the part of the history where they don't exist. But also for the part of history (until the early 1960s) when the colour rendition of those photos was false or incomplete. You can get a little closer to understanding what that colour looked like, but it's important to understand that colour emulsions vary in the way they work: it's not black and white film with extra colour sensitivity. So at best you will be colourising the black and white film to look like the colour film, which is not reality. And there are well-understood problems with correct representation of skin tones with colour film until the mid-eighties. I can see your point; I just think there's a bigger picture here (pun not intended) that you're not seeing.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  > Automatic colourisation is and will be viewed differently, as more "scientific" Then the solution is to correct that misperception, not deny ourselves a useful tool. > I can see your point; I just think there's a bigger picture here (pun not intended) that you're not seeing. My overarching point is that this is a tool like any other. And the idea that "doing it by hand is more respectful of the notion that it is subjective" I will push back on 100%. There is nothing disrespectful about colorizing a photo, automatically or by hand. But it should always be clearly communicated that it is subjective not objective, whether human or machine. Again, if someone believes the colorization is somehow "real" or "scientific" because a computer did it, then correct their misbelief. Don't stop using the tool. That's the bigger picture here.