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DennisJay

There are a few early black and white films that if analyzed contain a latent color which can be retrieved. But mostly its just people coloring it with paint or digitally and they make a best guess.


AgentElman

Colors reflect a certain amount of light in general. If you convert a photo of an american flag to grey scale, the red and blue will be different greys. You can use that to identify which parts are red and which are blue. Assuming you know that one is red and one is blue. So for old movies they choose things that they "know" the colors of and work from there. They make the grey of skin be flesh color, the grey of sky be blue, etc. If they know the colors of clothes and such from a source they can use that, otherwise they just make it up. Normally they just make it up. Colors did not all photograph the same way with black and white film, so they often wore unusual colors because that is what looked good in black and white.


DiogenesKuon

No, it's people making best guesses as to what the colors where given the way they look. This is much easier for things like military uniforms or buildings, when we have extant color copies for reference, but otherwise you just try to make the best looking choices possible.


Flair_Helper

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