Heritage and AI

Can AI enhance the past?

Here, we can see, an old photograph, of what appears to be a pipe works or flower mill.

We assume it's old. Because, it's in black and white. The quality of the photograph is not of the same resolution you would see today. We can also see white areas, which indicates that the photograph is over exposed

Tony!, next slide please!

Please try and stay awake!

This is the same photograph, but it's been colored, by Artificial Intelligence

The picture, appears more alive, and you might say it looks better than the original!

On closer inspection, we can still see the over exposed parts are still white. If you were looking at this photograph for the first time, you may interpret the white areas as maybe flour, chalk or even snow! This is because you expect the whole the picture to be colored correctly as you would on a modern photograph.

Here, we can see, an old photograph, of what appears to be a pipe works or flower mill.

We assume it's old. Because, it's in black and white. The quality of the photograph is not of the same resolution you would see today. We can also see white areas, which indicates that the photograph is over exposed

This is the same photograph, but it's been colored, by Artificial Intelligence

The picture, appears more alive, and you might say it looks better than the original!

On closer inspection, we can still see the over exposed parts are still white. If you were looking at this photograph for the first time, you may interpret the white areas as maybe flour, chalk or even snow! This is because you expect the whole the picture to be colored correctly as you would on a modern photograph.

To rectify this, we would need to color the white areas ourselves. We would have to guess what color these areas might would be.

Well Tony, your pocket money has ran out. Unfortunately, I have to go now as I think one of the Giraffes have escaped into the garden!!