Colorize a black-and-white funeral photo

A black-and-white photograph stays black and white unless you ask for color. That is the default, and it is the right default for a funeral: people are looking for the person they knew, and automatic color is a guess.

When color is offered

After you upload, the site checks whether the photograph is black and white. If it is, you can leave it that way or turn on “Colorize anyway.” Color runs only after you confirm this sentence: “I understand color can change skin tone and slightly alter facial features.” If the photograph is already in color, color correction stays off. Color that was painted or printed on the photograph is kept when you leave color off.

Turning color on asks the restoration to add color. It can shift skin tone, and it can slightly change the features you are trying to keep. It is not a record of the colors in the room that day. If the preview does not look like them, do not pay. You can make another preview with color left off. Each photograph gets up to three free tries.

Where a black-and-white file is the better one

Newspapers often print an obituary in black and white even when you send color. The portrait includes an obituary JPG in the photograph’s own tones and a second JPG already converted to black and white, each under 2 MB. The sizes and the usual newspaper rules are in Obituary photo size and requirements.

Use the black-and-white obituary file when the paper asked for grayscale. Use color on the easel only when the family has looked at the preview and wants it. The portrait those files come from is the memorial portrait. What else a restoration should leave alone is What restoration can and can’t fix.