This post is part of an ongoing project: scanning my old slides, prints, and negatives (late 1970’s to 2004) to digital.
Back before color film was invented, photographers used the process of hand-colouring (hand-tinting) monochrome photos to add color. Even after the advent of color photography, hand-colouring remained a photography niche for its artistic and aesthetic values.
My photographer mother introduced my wife, Ruth, and me to hand-tinting in the 70’s. My memories are of Mom hand-tinting a bride’s picture as a unique offering when she photographed a wedding. For a while, we were very into the process. While I took/ printed the pictures and did some tinting, Ruth (the artist in the family) did most of the more complex hand tinting. We have not hand-tinted since my switching to digital. As part of my research for this post, I found the niche is still very much alive. Photographers shoot digital in color, convert the image to monochrome with software, print the result and hand colour the image. A new item on my bucket list!
Most of our hand-tinted photographs did not survive the ravages of time, but here are a few that did.
First, a comparison of monochrome to hand-tinted, from a series in the 80’s.
Prints were scanned to digital on March 22, 2025
Click here is see full-size, no watermark, images at www.ImagesByBill.us
Thanks for visiting!
March 23, 2025
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