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Artist Colorizes Old Black & White Photos, And It Makes A Huge Difference In How We See Past Events
Anybody can use Photoshop, but doing a good job remains a craft. Professional colorist from Brazil, Marina Amaral, doesn't just click-and-drag. Driven by her burning obsession with history, Marina does extensive research to make her colorizations as realistic as possible, too.
Amaral has played with Photoshop since she was about ten. In 2015, she was scrolling a history forum on the internet and discovered colorized photos of World War I. Instantly inspired, Amaral started restoring and putting color into photos that were originally black and white. This allows people to experience the past through a whole new perspective. "Each photo is made to be realistic by recognizing the value behind each one of them, respecting and preserving their stories, paying attention to the finer details and maintaining their original essence."
"Every completed work has gone through long and in depth research, and is supported by the opinions of experts in each particular area if necessary, to faithfully reproduce the original colors and atmosphere," she adds. "My work ranges from simple portraits to complex and detailed images, taken from various historical periods covering a wide range of topics." Continue scrolling to enjoy Marina's wonderful work.
More info: marinamaral.com | Facebook | Twitter
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Ruby Bridges, Escorted By US Marshals To Attend An All-White School, 1960
Cree Man, Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, Canada, 1903
Monet
A Photographer Uses His Own Backdrop To Mask Poland's World War II Ruins While Shooting A Portrait In Warsaw In November 1946
Lewis Powell. He Was A Conspirator With John Wilkes Booth, Who Assassinated President Abraham Lincoln
Marie Sklodowska Curie
Four Female Pilots Leaving Their Ship, Pistol Packin' Mama, At The Four Engine School At Lockbourne AAF, 1944
1940: Frances Green, Margaret (Peg) Kirchner, Ann Waldner and Blanche Osborn leaving their plane, "Pistol Packin' Mama," at the four-engine school at Lockbourne AAF, Ohio, during WASP ferry training B-17 Flying Fortress.
Queen Elizabeth II
Banana Docks, New York. CA 1890 – 1910
Finnish Sniper Simo Häyhä, White Death
"White Death " because this Finnish sniper record 505 confirmed kills. He survived a bullet in the head and lived 96 years.
Titanic Orphans, Brothers Michel And Edmond Navratil, 1912. They Were The Only Children To Be Rescued From The Titanic Without A Parent Or Guardian
Their father had abducted them from their mother and then he drowned. The mother was found and took them back in the end.
Eunice Hancock, A 21-Year-Old Woman, Operates A Compressed-Air Grinder In A Midwest Aircraft Plant During World War II. August 1942
Roza Shanina, A 19-Year-Old Russian WWII Sniper With 59 Confirmed Kills
Unfortunately, she never made out of the war alive. She was killed by a shell fragment in January 1945, just three months before the end of the war...
Young Kenyan Woman Holding A Dik-Dik, Mombasa, 1909
The Most Intelligent Picture Ever Taken: Participants Of The 5th Solvay Conference On Quantum Mechanics, 1927
Men Of 72 Highlanders Who Served In The Crimea: William Noble, Alexander Davison And John Harper, 1853 – 1856
Coronation Of Queen Elizabeth II. 2 June, 1953
Senator John F. Kennedy And Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy On Their Wedding Day. September 12, 1953
Grigori Rasputin. Lover Of The Russian Empress
Private Paul Oglesby, 30th Infantry, Standing Inprivate Paul Oglesby, 30th Infantry, Standing In Reverence Before An Altar In A Damaged Catholic Church (Santa Maria Degli Angeli). Acerno, Italy, September 1943
Hermann Göring Sits In The Dock At The Nuremberg Trial, 1946
Einstein And Chaplin
Italian Immigrants Arrive At Ellis Island, 1905
How many of these people descendants are today's racists, anti-immigration and xenophobics?
Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, 1936
Albert Einstein, 1 March 1921
Winston Churchill As A Cornet In The 4th Queen's Hussar's Cavalry, 1895
A stirring voice for freedom unless one has the misfortune of being Irish.
Queen Victoria And Her Family, Including King Edward VII, Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, Kaiser Wilhelm II And Empress Frederick At A Wedding In Coburg, Germany, 1894
So, Kaiser Wilhelm II was Victoria's grand son, Nicolas II maried Victoria's grand daughter... the familly meetings must have been fun after 1914.
Lincoln, 1860
Faces Of Auschwitz: Janina Nowak
She was an extraordinary woman - she escaped from Auschwitz in 1942, and while she was recaptured in 1943 and brought back, she survived. It's unclear what happened to her after the war. Let's just hope she didn't die at the hands of the Soviets like many others who were rescued from Nazi camps just to end up in Soviet ones...
The Liberation Of Bergen-Belsen, April 1945
How can fools look at these pictures & deny the Holocaust? It's beyond me!
A Group Of Bootblacks Gather Around An Old Civil War Veteran In Pennsylvania, 1935
Now that's something we probably wouldn't see today...young boys hanging on an old veteran's every word. Or boys working at such young ages. But look at the shine on the old man's boot. The boy did a good job!
Sami Girl, 1938, Suenjel, Petsamo
American Infantrymen Of The U.S. Army’s 92nd Infantry Division (“Buffalo Soldiers Division”) Are Photographed At Rest In Italy. April 1945
Some of them settled in Italy after the war, and married italian women. One of the best italian saxophonist James Senese (06-01-45), is half italian and half american, like we used to say in the past, "a war's child". james-sene...e-750.jpeg 
Before And After The Facial Reconstruction Of A Wounded Soldier During World War I
Hiroshima After Bombing
Queen Elizabeth Great Grandmother
Civil Rights March On Washington, D. C. With Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And Mathew Ahmann In A Crowd
Filthy Thirteen Member Clarence Ware Applies War Paint To Charles Plaudo. England, 31 December 1943
Their leader, Jake McNeice was part Choctaw, and he applied their tribes strong warrior aethetic to his men. These guys infiltrated behind enemy lines to destroy support and supply lines during the war. Very low survivor rate.
School At Anthoston, Kentucky, 1916
In the color one the kids are looking down... But in the original they are looking to the front. Did someone else realized?
Otto Frank Anexo
That is Anne's Frank father and the only one from the family to have survived the Nazi camps. He is pictured here in the attic of the Secret Annex on the 3rd May 1960, the day the Anne Frank House was officially opened to the public.
Bull Chief, An Indian Warrior, Apsaroke Tribe. The Photo Was Taken In 1908 By Edward S. Curtis. He Is Wearing A Buffalo Headdress With Horns
Bodybuilder Gene Jantzen With Wife Pat, And Eleven-Month-Old Son Kent, 1947
Unemployed Lumber Worker (Thomas Cave) Goes With His Wife (Vivian) To The Bean Harvest, Oregon, August 1939
Booker T. Washington
Captured the light gray of his eyes very well. Burgundy tie is a nice touch.
Soccer Team Of British WWI Soldiers Wearing Gas Masks, France, 1916
Brazilian Army Pvt. Francisco De Paula Of The Brazilian Expeditionary Force During The Italian Campaign, WWII
In case you're wondering, the inscription on the shell means "The snake is smoking", which was adopted as the motto of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force along with the moniker "Cobras Fumantes" (Smoking Snakes) after a popular saying that "...it's easier for a snake to smoke a pipe than the BEF to go to war". Well, the snakes were definitely smoking in Italy that year...
Photograph From The Main Eastern Theater Of The War, Battle Of Antietam, Md. Allan Pinkerton, President Lincoln, And Maj. Gen. John A. Mcclernand, 1862
Gustave Eiffel
Archduke Franz Ferdinand Of Austria
Looking a lot more alive than most of us think... are the colors of the ribbons are historically accurate?
James Dean
RMS Mauretania, 1909
Cunard's four screw arrangement was always better than White Star's choice of just three for the Olympic class, due to the fact a rudder is far less efficient if it moves in the wake of a propeller than if it moves in the relatively calm waters between the screws. I mean, sure, the Mauretania class had a host of other problems, like stability issues and vibration from it's turbines, but there you have it. Ironically, if the roles had been switched between the Titanic and Lusitania, each of those ships would have dealt better with the other's disaster - Titanic had transverse coal bunkers so a torpedo hit in the same place would not have set off a coal-dust explosion, and Lusitania's propulsion and steering arrangement would have made a glancing blow with the iceberg a lot less likely. It's debatable however if once hit in the same manner as Titanic, Lusitania would have fared better, because she had taller bulkheads but also longitudinal ones, meaning she listed severely as she sank.
Dick Winters And His Easy Company (Hbo's Band Of Brothers) Lounging At Eagle's Nest, Hitler's Former Residence In The Bavarian Alps, 1945
Dumpu, New Guinea, 7 October 1943. Members Of The 2/2nd Australian Independent Company
A Slovak Woman With Her Child - Ellis Island Immigrants, 1900s
Ice-Skaters On Ice In Tuxedo Park, New York, Circa 1904
Angoni Warriors At King George V’s Coronation Celebrations, Zomba, 1911
Yuri Gagarin
Russian cosmonaut: first person to journey into outer space.
Malmö, Skåne, Sweden, 1910
Nurse Aiko Hamaguchi
She was an American nurse of Japanese origin detained in the "Manzanar War Relocation Center" (internment camp). The picture was taken in 1943. https://i.huffpost.com/gen/3735342/thumbs/o-CARD-900.jpg?7
French Soldier Falls After Being Shot In No-Man's-Land At Verdun
Old Peasant With Dagger And Long Smoking Pipe, Mestia, Svanetia, Georgia
Sami People And A Traditional Peat Hut, CA. 1850
Mark Twain 1900s
American author, ailurophile and outspoken atheist. Pacifist. Author of "The War Prayer." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVYIRbmxHpc
Covent Garden Laborers, 1877, London
Dominikus Müller
He was a German airman wounded during an air raid over France in 1917.
A German Soldier With A Saw Tooth Bayonet Stands In A Dugout Wearing His Brow Plate Slid Down To His Neck, World War One
Canadian Soldiers Celebrating After Fighting On Vimy Ridge, April 1917
Greta Garbo, 1939
Her beauty is classic. She never looked dated in any of her films, from her hair to her makeup. In this 1939 photograph, she could walk right out of the studio into 2018 and right into Vogue magazine or a Hollywood romantic comedy without changing her look.
Titanic Prepares To Leave Port, 1912
Big Ben 1920
Santa Claus With Christmas Toys On A Sled Drawn By White Turkeys, 1909
Jackie Robinson Of The Brooklyn Dodgers, Posed And Ready To Swing - 1 January 1954
Martin Luther King
We could use more men, and women, like him right now. Any color or creed is fine.
A German Soldier Being Captured During The Battle Of Moscow, 1 Dec 1941
August Kowalczyk
Kowalczyk survived. He escaped from Auschwitz on June 10, 1942 and was a soldier of the Polish Home Army. Later he was a great Polish theater and film actor. He died in July 2012.
A US Soldier Stands Amid Crates And Stacks Of Loot Stored By Nazi Germany In Schlosskirche (Castle Church), Bavaria, 1945
A U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman Takes Down The Information Of A U.S. Marine Of The 1st Marine Division Who Was Killed On The Beach Of Peleliu During The American Landings Of The Battle Of Peleliu (Operation Stalemate II)
US Marine Corps Private First Class Faris M. Tuohy Drinking A Cup Of Coffee Aboard A Ship Off Eniwetok After Two Days Of Fighting, Marshall Islands, Feb 1944
President John F. Kennedy With His Son, John F. Kennedy, Jr., In The Oval Office, White House, Washington, DC - 25 May 1962
Working On Lincoln, Mt. Rushmore 1937
Mikhail Kalashnikov
This inventor of the machine gun possibly responsible for the most casualties in history, died at 94 years old back in 1994. But not without regret. He wrote the following to a priest at his church two years prior to his death: "I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle claimed people's lives, then can it be that I... a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?" he wrote. "The longer I live, the more this question drills itself into my brain and the more I wonder why the Lord allowed man to have the devilish desires of envy, greed and aggression."
Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, Also Known As Lawrence Of Arabia
President Theodore Roosevelt In His Rough Riders Uniform With His Signature Blue Polka-Dotted Scarf, 26 October 1898
Grand Duchesses Tatiana And Olga Romanov
Donald W. Stulp, A Baker For The Omar Bakery In Omaha
September 1942. New York. Drinking Fountain In Central Park On Sunday
Al Capone
I'm sorry but what jumped out at me in this photo is Al's hairy paws; now I'm thinking he had a hairy back too.
Paris Street In The June Days Uprising, 1848
Amusingly, these streets are not deserted - the photographic process of the time required long exposure times, so only people standing still long enough would appear. There is one such figure next to the far barricade and three more "ghosts" (people that stayed still for long enough to appear on film, but not enough to appear clearly), near the closer one.
General Douglas Macarthur, 1930
Thomas Edison Relaxing On A “Vagabonds” Camping Trip, 1921
Photograph Of The Nimrod Expedition (1907-09) To The Antarctic, Led By Ernest Shackleton
Royal Marine Commandos D Day
The Jersey Shore Circa 1905
Edgar Allan Poe
Fridtjof Nansen
Newsies At Skeeter's Branch. St. Louis, Missouri - May 9, 1910 (Lewis Hine)
Oh dear! I always forgot there used to be "nothing wrong" with kids smoking. My mother (60 yo) was offered her first cigarette for her Communion ( hopefully she had whooping cough and though she was going to die right after her first drag)
A Bedouin In His Happy Mood
A 1st Royal Ulster Rifles, 6th Airborne Division (UK) Sniper, On Patrol In The Ardennes, Wearing A Snow Camouflage Suit. 14 January 1945
Empress Alexandra And Tsar Nicholas II
A National Socialist Helps An Elderly Woman From A Polling Station During The German Federal Election, Berlin, November 1932
A few years later, he'd probably be beating her down in the street. Animals.
Daredevil John "Jammie" Reynolds Performing Acrobatic And Balancing Acts On High Cornice Above 9th Street, N.W. - 1917
Leon Trotsky
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, 1889
Emmeline Pankhurst, C.1910
Sir Winston Churchill In His Knight Of The Garter Robes, His Son Randolph, And Grandson, Winston. Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation Day, 1953
Tsar Nicholas II, Last Russian Emperor
Always a bit sad seeing photos of any of the Romanovs knowing what will happen to them.
US Marines In An LCVP Approaching Iwo Jima, Japan, 19 Feb 1945
Franz Liszt
A "rock star" of his age and brilliant pianist. Suggested lisztening: Totentanz, The Wanderer Fantasy and the Hungarian dances. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT36za3Gyos
American Troops Prepare Nazi Major General Anton Dostler For Execution For Killing 15 OSS Men, Italy, 1945
Leo Tolstoy
Massaponax Church, VA. Council Of War, 1864
A Prisoner Of War (Pow) Is A Person, Whether Combatant Or Non-Combatant, Who Is Held In Custody By A Belligerent Power During Or Immediately After An Armed Conflict. The Earliest Recorded Usage Of The Phrase "Prisoner Of War" Dates To 1660
A Sniper From "C" Company, 5th Battalion, The Black Watch In Position In A Ruined Building In Gennep, Holland, 14 February 1945
The thing that strikes me is the courage of the journalists who put themselves in harms way to document the war. Can you today's "journalists" (think Fox and Friends) doing this?
Archduke Franz Ferdinand And His Wife, Sophie, Leave Sarajevo City Hall On June 28, 1914, Shortly Before They Were Killed. Within 30 Days, Wwi Would Begin
Peasants Of Upper Egypt, CA. 1900
Look at the belly on the kid. He doesn't look malnourished nor over fed but why so big?
Ted Williams
One of the best hitters to ever pick up a bat. Two men have a career OPS over 1.100. The other one is George Herman Ruth.
Marine Identified As Sgt Angelo Klonis Smoking A Cigarette During The Final Days Of Fighting To Gain Control Of The Island Of Saipan From Occupying Japanese Forces During WWII, 1944
Two German Soldiers Read A Newspaper Before Using It For Another Purpose
Arthur Schopenhauer By J Schäfer, 1859
American Soldiers, Paris
Hitler With Some Of His SS-Begleitkommando Guards At The Wolf’s Lair In East Prussia
To think of the evil these men wrought when they all look so little and unintimidating.
Dom Pedro II, Last Emperor Of Brazil
Jackie Kennedy
Recruiting Sergeants At Westminster, Mitre And Dove Pub, 1877
I'm impressed with how well the photo came out given it shot in the 1800's
Jacquelyn Kennedy
Mmmh, I would have said "Lyndon Johnson taking the oath in Air Force One" even if Jacquelyn Kennedy is on the picture.
Elvis Presley's Second Appearance In The Ed Sullivan Show
Margaret Thatcher
Loved by some hated by many, the middle class media portrayed her as a great leader but if you are from Wales or the North you still feel the pain she caused to this day. She devastated communities.
Tsar Nicholas II
General George S. Patton Acknowledging The Cheers Of The Welcoming Crowds In Los Angeles, Ca, During His Visit On June 9, 1945
That billboard of Iwo Jima with a real America flag is brilliant!!!
Robert Falcon Scott
Richard M. Nixon And Elvis Presley At The White House, 12/21/1970
Armia Krajowa
Brewster B-239 Buffalo With 33 12 Victories And The Pilot Lt. Hans Wind, Finland 1943
The Brewster Buffalo was one of the worst fighter planes of WW II and made easy prey for Japanese Zeroes. However, a number of Finns became aces flying it against the poorly trained Red Army Air Force.
Napoleon’s Grande Armée Veterans. Burg – Fourrier Of The Grenadiers Of The Imperial Guard. Delignon – Marechal De Logis Guard Jager 1809 – 1815 (Actually Marechal Des Logis Chef - Sergeant Major Chasseurs ‘A’ Cheval De La Garde Imperiale.
Liberator Crew Of No 311 (Czech) Squadron And Dog Sat On The Wing Of A Liberator Mk IIA, Possibly Serial Number LV343 At RAF Beaulieu, 21 July 1943.
that man was mentally destroyed, when the UK and other countries sold Czech Republic to Russia (also they are sold Czech Republic to Hitler in Munchen 1938) just to save teir asses.. Prague (Czech main city) was one of the last places, where the war still going... Actualy, less than a few hours away, in city Pilsen was an USA army, but because they sold us tu Russia, the soldiers must stop there, so in Prague pleople dying for three more days. These Czech crew and others decided to fly from England to Prague to help free the city, but Churchill forced our President to called them back... All of them was haunted by Communist after they returned home.... Thanks for nothing UK ;)
Soviet Army Soldiers Manning A Maxim Machine Gun (Lower Right) And Two Others, One In A Doorway And One In A Second-Floor Window, Take Aim At German Positions During The Battle Of Berlin. May 1945
Hesse And By Rhine Family In 1876
Jim Clark At 1965 Dutch Grand Prix
Maj. Greg Pappy Boyington
He was an US fighter pilot who served with the "Flying Tigers" (1st American Volunteer Group) in the Republic of China Air Force in Burma during 1941-42 before returning to the US. He flew the rest of the war with the Marine Corps and was shot down in 1944 spending 20 months as a POW in several Japanese camps. He died in 1988.
Bringing Canadian Wounded To The Field Dressing Station At Vimy Ridge In April 1917
Charles De Gaulle
Rumored to have tried to purchase the Rock of Gibralter. It would have been renamed "DeGaulle Stone."
Ulysses S. Grant, Ca. 1873
Exercise Horse Artillery Corps, Arnhem (Netherlands), Ca. 1900, Exercise At A Training Ground
Looks like the cover of any modern "indie rock" band's album
King George V, 1914
It is known as a bear skin hat. It is big to make the Queen 's Guard who wear them now to look bigger and fierce.
Edward VII At His Coronation, 1902
American Civil War: Fort Pulaski, Ga. Interior View Of The Breach, April 1862
German Stormtrooper Photographed On A French Training Ground Exercise For The March 1918 Kaiserschlacht Offensive
Not to be confused with the later Nazi Sturm Abwehr. These early storm troops were armed with some of the earliest submachine guns, grenades and the occasional flamethrower. They were shock troops.
Band Of Brothers - Eagles Nest
Ty Cobb - Detroit Tigers V New York Yankees, 1909
King Oscar II Of Sweden And Norway
Prince Edward, Later King Edward VIII, Dressed In An Ermine Gown, 1911
Friedrich Ebert
John Surratt
Co-conspirator with John Wilkes Booth for the murder of President Lincoln.
Stalin In March 1935
Ayrton Senna At The 1991 US Grand Prix
Not only was this so well done, but it was actually a very educational post. I googled many of the people in here to find out more. Thank you very much.
This is the sort of stuff I wanna see more on Boredpanda. Thanks for putting this up.
Some old colourised b&W pictures look artificial and "wrong" - but these dont
But the colours aren't the right ones though. Just a good estimation, resp. hopefully good investigated, for example the colours of the Cree man's clothing.
Load More Replies... Not only was this so well done, but it was actually a very educational post. I googled many of the people in here to find out more. Thank you very much.
This is the sort of stuff I wanna see more on Boredpanda. Thanks for putting this up.
Some old colourised b&W pictures look artificial and "wrong" - but these dont
But the colours aren't the right ones though. Just a good estimation, resp. hopefully good investigated, for example the colours of the Cree man's clothing.
Load More Replies...
