The school is out whether old photos in colour make them better or make them worse. It is my view the scene that would have been captured, would have been in colour, we didn’t live in black and white! So why not colour it?
This image is 5 Sailors dressed in USS New York outfits 1896.
The colouring should be done with as much research as possible and not just guess colours. I looked up the brand of the sewing machine, sailor suits, ship colour (grey) sorry it looks a little blue, plain board deck, no paint there.
Calling all ancient gun experts The only thing I could not find any information on was the big gun in the background. If anyone knows what it was or what colour it would have been, please let me know. I tried wiki and “ships guns USS New York” but nothing of great substance came about.
It looks like it has boxes on either side, the dog appears to be sitting on one. Perhaps spare shot was kept in there or fuses? Maybe it is not even meant to be there at all but just added to add a bit of drama. It would not be the first time in history for photographers to manipulate the photo in this way to make a better composition or make them more interesting.
An old photo in colour. 1896 USS New York Sailors
This image has been used by me before in an example of “time travel”. Actually just this image but with a modern twist, I’ve added some 20th Century kit to this old photo. Why not check out the post and see photoshop time travel. The image is in black and white though and you may need to compare to spot all the items I added. Just a bit of fun!
If this inspires you to have your photo colourized visit my main colourize a black and white photo page.
Image credit to Shorpy.com