B&W pictures to full color

A novel, computer-assisted method for colourizing black and white images and movies has been developed by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering.

The method is less expensive and time-consuming than earlier colourization methods developed in the late 20th century and which were used to convert to colour several classic black-and-white motion pictures such as "Casablanca."

The user indicates how each region should be colourized by simply "scribbling" the desired colour in the interior of the targeted region, as viewed on a computer screen, instead of tracing its precise boundary. With these user-supplied "hints," the software developed by the researchers automatically propagates colours to the remainder of the image and from there to subsequent frames of the movie.

Source: eurekalert.orgAdded: 10 April 2007