How Good Is the New Colorize Neural Filter in Photoshop?

Photoshop has been embracing A.I and neural filters over the last year or so, and one that has grabbed a lot of attention is the automatic colorize filter. But how good is it for coloring black and white images?

I can scarcely remember how I got started with it, but nearly a decade ago, I worked out I could recolor black and white, vintage photographs better than many of the people selling the service. I took much longer to do it, but in most instances, I could create better results. I was only doing it for fun to begin with, but as requests from friends and family came pouring in, I decided to turn it into a mini-business. It did well for a while and I still get requests today, but I pivoted away for the most part.

The reason I did this was that I noticed automated, A.I driven applications were getting better and closer to realistic. I knew the service wasin a guillotine and that the blade was going to drop sooner rather than later. It actually took longer than I had expected for it to become more common and for Photoshop to offer it, and it still isn't accurate enough, but it's getting much closer. As with most automated tools, the best way to use them is as part of a larger workflow, where you guide the results and improve the output.

Have you tried the new Colorize neural filter in Photoshop? What did you make of it?

Rob Baggs's picture

Robert K Baggs is a professional portrait and commercial photographer, educator, and consultant from England. Robert has a First-Class degree in Philosophy and a Master's by Research. In 2015 Robert's work on plagiarism in photography was published as part of several universities' photography degree syllabuses.

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4 Comments

Fun watching a presenter doing his level best to talk up something that is clearly not working. "In Beta' is a bit optimistic - I have tried this too, and got the same results. That's a big "Nope" from me.

It's a nice tool, that's still in beta, and clearly has good potential

Not sure it can outshine my beloved Photoglory, but I'll give it a shot.

I can't even get it to download.