Erma Galgoczi Szabo; Wedding Day

I keep looking at them and thinking of Kate Hepburn - "The calla lilies are in bloom" :)

Are you sure you mean
“colorized?” If it was colored before abt 1975 it was probably hand-tinted (painted, colored). "Colorizing" didn’t start until around 1975-80.)

Sherry Richmond That's why I put the question mark. Was it hand painted at the time? Or was it colorized by the submitter? Is there a way to tell? :)

Looks like it may have been a sepia photo that wad hand tinted with pink and green when it was first produced. A more modern colorizing would probably have more colors (like in the flowers over the archway.

Ree, this an educated guess abt how to determine if a photo has been “colorized.” Hand coloring began around the late 1800s. Examine the original photo closely with a magnifying glass. In the 1980’s computers & printers were still pretty crude so the resolution would probably appear jagged & crude. Black & white photos were taken with silver-based film that produced tiny little blobby dots & then they were painted with photographer’s inks. Also, look at the type of paper. Most old, formal wedding & baby photos taken before the 1950s were printed on fairly thick matte photographic paper & hand-colored photographers inks. Whereas in the early 1980s most colorized photo printing was printed on thin computer paper or thicker, shiny photo computer paper. Color photos were also taken with more expensive color film beginning around the 1930s to the early 2000s & by then most photographers had switched to digital photos.

"Colorizing" photos was done even in the early 1900's. The term refers to adding color to black-and-white photos or film regardless of whether it was done by hand or mechanically.

Computer (mechanical) colorizing began in the 1970's.

I was referring to this photo being colorized because it was originally not in color even though color film was available from Eastment Kodak in 1935 (when this photo was taken). Kodachrome is what it was called, and it was a three-color film.

But the term "colorization" is not restricted to only the mechanical process. It refers to the hand-painting process as well.

Ree, I never heard of hand-tinting (painting) photos being called "colorization." Neither my husband, who is 72 nor I heard of colorization until the 1980s when Roger Ebert & Gene Siskal began talking abt colorized movies. I'm 70 yrs old & 1st became interested in photography as a hobby when I was in HS in abt 1965.

Sherry Richmond Three definitions, from Wikipecia, Mental Floss, and a film school:

"Film colorization (or colourisation) is any process that adds color to black-and-white, sepia, or other monochrome moving-picture images. It may be done as a special effect, to modernize black-and-white films, or to restore color films. Examples date from the early 20th century, but colorization has become common with the advent of digital image processing."

"Early film colorization dates back to the beginning of the 20th century."

"Of course, the earliest attempts at colorization date back to the very beginning of film itself."

I don't have time presently to dig out my textbooks from when I taught college courses in Film Studies (I'm a retied prof), but the gist of it is that the term "colorization" is often attributed only to the digital process (although there are still books on how to do it by hand). But that does not mean that the term was not used when hand-painting and tinting were first used over a hundred years ago.

I found that many of my students did not realize how early both still photography and films were produced and how early techniques for adding color were being tried. It's just about a lost art. And they were also surprised at the really wonderful effects that were achieved in black-and-white.