ChatGPT can colourise your old black-and-white photos: Here’s how to do it | Technology News

Ever thought of bringing your loved ones’ old black-and-white photos to life, or simply wanted to add some color to your creative drawings with ease? Advanced AI tools like ChatGPT can help you infuse colour into old pictures, and they have made it fairly simple to do it yourself. ChatGPT allows you to upload old photos and its image generation features allow you to colourise them without losing the essence of the original image.
The AI tool gives you more control over the essential components such as skin tones, clothing colours, and colours in the backdrop instead of relying on generic filters found on random apps. With ChatGPT, one can instruct the model to maintain the original lighting, contrast, and textures. If you want to try it, here are some simple steps to add colour to your old photos with ChatGPT.
How does it work?
Firstly, upload the old image to ChatGPT. After uploading the next stage is to give the prompt, which is essentially instructions that the AI model will use to add realic colours while maintaining the original details of the image. The AI model will change the backgrounds, attire, and skin tones ensuring that the image is true to its time.
Step 1: Upload the Image
Story continues below this ad

Click the image icon in the chat window and upload your old black and white photo. ChatGPT, with image tools enabled, can help you restore and colorise the photo using advanced AI. This transforms your black and white memories into vivid, lifelike coloured versions with accuracy.
Step 2: Write the prompt
Once you have uploaded the image, compose a detailed prompt for the purpose. The prompt should describe the shade, clothing, background, and time period. The more specific the description the better the output as this information will let AI accurately colourise the image, bringing old memories back to life.
Below is a sample prompt:
“Colorise this black and white photo as realically as possible. Preserve natural skin tones, accurate eye color, and authentic lighting. Maintain the original atmosphere and character of the image—avoid artificial or overly saturated colors. For landscapes or street scenes, use lifelike hues for the sky, trees, clothing, and buildings. Ensure details remain sharp, and the final result should look like a genuine color photo, not something obviously edited or AI-generated.”
Once the prompt is added, one will have to wait for a few seconds to get the output. After the image is fully developed, one can download it and can also further refine it as per their preferences. It needs to be noted that the re-generated images may also have minor changes.Story continues below this ad
(This article has been curated Disha Gupta, who is an intern with the )