When my dad owned a photo lab, we used to add color to black and white photographs by painting them by hand. It was a painstaking process with little room for error. I like to stay on top of photo technology, learn new photo tricks, and develop new photo skills. Lately I’ve been playing with adding color to black and white photographs digitally. To do this, I downloaded some famous black and white photos from photographers such as Ansel Adams and Ben Ross, among others.

If you get this blog post in your email, I encourage you (today at least) to head to my actual Benfield Photography blog to interact with the before/after photo slider I set up for these. I believe in the email it will just show before and after photos, which I suppose is also fine!

Adding Color to Black and White Photographs of Marilyn Monroe

At first, I was going to do a post of just Marilyn Monroe photographs. I found so many incredible photos of her that I have always wanted to see in color. It just makes sense that I would use images of her for my “adding color to black and white photographs” exercise.

How do you think that turned out? Pretty cool, yeah?

Adding Color to Famous Photographs

Then, I ventured off into other black and white images I wanted to add color into. This Ansel Adams image (like all of his Yellowstone black and white photographs) have been my favorite for as long as I could remember. He was probably the first professional photographer I learned about and studied. So, it was a treat to get to add color to Ansel Adams’ black and white photographs.

And now, more famous black and white photographs I wanted to see in color…

This iconic image is one I actually prefer in black and white. The mood is amplified by the black and white treatment. Do you remember this photograph? It was one I learned about in American History class, not photography class.

What do you think about these? A cool effect? I’d love to hear in the comments section.

Talk to you soon,
Dale