My colorized photos

[Greg Gale]

Rather than spamming other threads, I'll open a separate one for the pictures I've colorized:

A US Naval aviator is climbing into his Grumman F6F Hellcat, getting ready for a strike on Formosa in 1944.

A Hungarian MIG-15 on the tarmac of Szolnok airfield in 1964.

The F-14 Tomcat is easily one of the most beautiful planes in history. I especially like the gull gray / white camo of the 70s. 99% of Tomcat photos are in color, but this one is my favorite, a clean F-14 in the colors of VF-1 Wolfpack, so I just had to colorize it.

 

[Brettafett]

Amazing work pal!

 

[Steve27752]

Nicely done Greg.

 

[ausreenactor]

Stellar work.

Do you think you could jazz this up?

Jungle Green uniform and beret, khaki rank slides, brown belt and a US M1 Carbine?

 

[Pilot]

Nicely done Greg.

Echo that...well done! Thx for sharing.

 

[Shawn Ali]

Good Work..

 

[Greg Gale]

Thanks all for the kind words!

Stellar work.

Do you think you could jazz this up?

View attachment 22416

Jungle Green uniform and beret, khaki rank slides, brown belt and a US M1 Carbine?

One picture takes a very long time and it's a lot of work, therefore, I usually only color pictures that I really want to see in color. This being said, I also accept commissions (I work cheap )

It's important to note that the quality of the end result highly depends on the quality of the original photo. The better the resolution, the more convincing it will look once colorized.

 

[Greg Gale]

Some more that I've already posted in other threads:

 

[Greg Gale]

 

[Lorenzo_l]

Rather than spamming other threads, I'll open a separate one for the pictures I've colorized:

A US Naval aviator is climbing into his Grumman F6F Hellcat, getting ready for a strike on Formosa in 1944.

View attachment 22359


A Hungarian MIG-15 on the tarmac of Szolnok airfield in 1964.

View attachment 22361


The F-14 Tomcat is easily one of the most beautiful planes in history. I especially like the gull gray / white camo of the 70s. 99% of Tomcat photos are in color, but this one is my favorite, a clean F-14 in the colors of VF-1 Wolfpack, so I just had to colorize it.

View attachment 22362

I've seen original colour photos of f-14s from that outfit. Your rendition is exactly what they look like, colour-wise. Bang-up job, Greg!

 

[B-Man2]

Greg
I’m blown away by your work on all these photographs! Amazing for sure. Is that Neil Armstrong as young naval aviator in that photograph??

 

[Smithy]

Great work Greg!

 

[ausreenactor]

Given that the majority of the first Astronauts were all military aviators I am surprised that Chuck Yeager didn't get a slot?

Great pics Greg.. Adds a new dimension and 'life' to images I have grown up with.

 

[Happy Hooligan]

love it all

 

[Flightengineer]

View attachment 22441View attachment 22442View attachment 22443

I don’t know how you do it Greg, but it’s magical.

The only thing that seems to me that this photo with Chuck is a little inconsistent with the actual colors (on my monitor the X-1 has a redder-beetroot shade than orange, and I think something is wrong with Chuck's jacket - it is so dark on the original b/w photo and I think it was most likely dark blue L2A). Perhaps of course this is due to the calibration of the monitor, but the rest of your colorized photos look on my monitor (and on both smartphones) very naturally.

 

[Greg Gale]

@Flightengineer I agree. Blue would have looked more natural with that jacket, because it's so dark. Then again, L-2a in 1947? Is that possible? The X1 was a nightmare to color as well. Some pictures work well colorized, some don't - or I'm just not good enough yet for some

How about now?

 

[Flightengineer]

@Flightengineer I agree. Blue would have looked more natural with that jacket, because it's so dark. Then again, L-2a in 1947? Is that possible? The X1 was a nightmare to color as well. Some pictures work well colorized, some don't - or I'm just not good enough yet for some

How about now?
View attachment 22545

It seems better
As for the jacket - may be this photo was not taken in 1947?
As you know, when he breaked the sound barrier, he weared his A2 jacket, and the photos taken immediately after that show him also in A2 or just in his flightsuit.
Type L-2 jacket was made in 1947- 1949. L2A came in 1950.
Probably on this photo we see L2 (L2A) jacket with a famous fastener at the bottom, and due dark it is, I believe it was blue L2A. L2 was lighter shade color jacket than (as it seems to me) the darker jacket on the original photo.
The X-1 program continued for years, besides Chuck subsequently posed many times for a lot photos on the Glamorous Glennis background. Even after the following modifications X-1A, B etc. were built, first X-1 46-062 Glamorous Glennis continued to remain on Edwards AFB and I think that taking Chuck's photo on the background of his named nose was not a problem. This photo is clearly arranged, see how in addition to top sunlight we see also srong direct light, maybe it's more stronger than the flash from the camera.

Of course, these are just my assumptions.

 

[Flightengineer]

I would like to add one more thing.
Look at lighter (white) colour of lower part of the X-1's fuselage (including the nose gear door). The shadows from Yeager's foots located directly on them. It is authentically known that in 1947 the X-1 was completely orange colour, this is confirmed by many historical photos.
So I think it is not 1947 photo and Chuck's L2A good correspond with it - this photo taken later.

Here is an postflight photo of October 1947.
Pay attention to the color of the bottom of the fuselage.

 

[ausreenactor]

No undershirt, can't be official!

 

[Greg Gale]

Robert S. Johnson, 56th FG