Ecuador·History·Artificial Intelligence·July 5, 2020·2 min read

The before and after of a restoration of old photographs with artificial intelligence and Photoshop

Watch century-old photos of Guayaquil come back to life, colorized and repaired with artificial intelligence and Photoshop in striking before-and-afters.

By Edgar Landivar

The before and after of a restoration of old photographs with artificial intelligence and Photoshop

A few weeks ago I started posting on Twitter OLD PHOTOGRAPHS processed with artificial intelligence algorithms and additionally restoration manuals, in order to colorize and resurrect old historical photos of Ecuador. Initially, I selected photographs that were approximately a century old, according to my taste, but little by little people were suggesting themes or sending me photographs from their collections. The amount of photos that arrived was such that I apologize from now on for the large number of photos that I had to put aside, to restore them in a future still without a date 🙁

One of the common requests was if I could show the before and after of the process at the same time. So I decided to make this article with a tool that allows to visualize the change in an attractive way.

A colorization process with artificial intelligence

The process of colorization of photographs that I will show here was based on several techniques, one of the most important being the use of computer algorithms that uses what is called deep learning or deep learning. In a later article I will show details of this procedure. At the end of this article I show a video where the technique is used, in conjunction with digital editing tools such as Photoshop.

Guayaquil's past, with today's eyes

The photos that I will show are mostly from the city of Guayaquil, due to the proximity of the Bicentennial festivities that will take place in the city in the month of October, date for which I hope to have available a book where the best restoration work in high resolution. The originals are currently in the safekeeping of the INPC.

Well, let's start with this beautiful photograph of the Guayaquil boardwalk, with the Olmedo steamer in the center. To observe the before and after, just move the bar (vertical white line) from left to right.

Guayaquil waterfront with the Olmedo steamer docked at the pier, unrestored antique photograph

Guayaquil waterfront with the Olmedo steamer docked at the pier, restored and colorized photograph

We continue with a spectacular scene by the Cuenca photographer Manuel Serrano. Anonymous characters.

Portrait of eight people posing in a courtyard, antique black-and-white photograph by Manuel Serrano

Portrait of eight people posing in a courtyard, photograph by Manuel Serrano restored and colorized

I personally like the next photo quite a bit. The challenge was to repair a huge fracture in the glass plate of the original negative.

La Infatigable steam sawmill of Manuel Genaro Gomez by the river, cracked glass plate negative

La Infatigable steam sawmill of Manuel Genaro Gomez by the river, restored and colorized photograph

Many of the photographs that attracted me were those that showed the Guayaquil entrepreneurship of the 1920s, such as the following photo of the Max Muller & Cía stores, which ended up becoming what is currently the CONAUTO / ECUAQUÍMICA group.

Interior of the Max Muller and Co. store in Guayaquil with its clerks, black-and-white photograph

Interior of the Max Muller and Co. store in Guayaquil with its clerks, restored and colorized

Below is a photo of the Lorenzo Tous warehouse in Guayaquil. It is one of my favorites, although it was necessary to work on the fracture that the glass plate had. It also gave me the opportunity to meet a descendant of Lorenzo Tous, who briefly told me the history of the family.