Best, Free, Fastest ways for Film Colorization in 2024

Photo Tech
4 min readMay 7, 2021

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colorization of film
Screenshot of a film colorized using Pixbim Video Colorize AI — Left side frame is black and white, Right side frame is a colorized

In this article we will look at the best way to colorize films, Converting black and white videos to color automatically without manual efforts. With recent advances in artificial intelligence and deep learning technology we will review the best tools available to do film colorization in the best possible way.

Film colorization using Pixbim Video Colorize AI

Do you have a collection of old black and white videos that you want to splash with colors? Now, you can brighten up your dull-looking video into a colorized one by simply going through the process of film colorization. The colorization of film is a fun way of putting life into a video and make it look more eye-catching than the old black and white version.

The question is, “how to color black and white videos automatically”?

The easiest way to colorize black and white videos is to utilize the benefits of film colorization software using AI. With the tools available in film colorization software, you can color black and white video quickly, effectively without damaging the video’s quality.

Pixbim Video Colorize AI

https://pixbim.com/film-colorization

Pixbim Video Colorize is the easiest film colorization software out there. It uses advanced artificial intelligence (AI) to colorize video and photos, eliminating the need to do it manually. The software uses AI colorization to provide users with high-quality results instantaneously.

We can see the frames being colored as it shows black and white frames along with colored frames when processing the video. The “Export Video” option at the top menu bar is useful as it allows to export the colored video when video is being colorized so we can see the smaller duration colored video before the coloring process is completed.

Steps To Colorize Videos Using Pixbim Video Colorizer AI

Below are the simple steps to follow:

1. Download the Pixbim Video Colorize AI on your PC.

2. Load the black and white video by pressing “Load Video” button at the top right in the Pixbim application.

3. Click “Start processing video and Save” at the bottom left and it starts converting black and white video to color.

4. You can track the progress by seeing the progress bar and the area beside the progress bar shows status messages.

5. One useful feature is “Export video” which is available at the top menu bar in “Help” as we can export the video when the coloring process is running so we can see how the colored video looks. In this way we can see the smaller version of the colored video without having to wait till the coloring is completed for the entire duration of the video.

6. If we want to stop the coloring process then click the “Stop processing video” at the bottom right so that it stops the coloring process.

Pros:

Using Pixbim Video Colorize AI will provide you the following:

1. It has a user-friendly interface.

2. It is automatic so no need to manually color the frames which saves a lot of time.

3. The software offers a trial version so you can check if it is the right product for you before buying. You have to pay for a one-time license fee, as it is not a subscription based software.

4. It runs on your machine so it does not store or upload content to the server so no privacy issues.

Cons:

  1. In the trial version colored videos will have watermark on them.

Deoldify

Deoldify is an open-source deep learning software that enables you to colorize videos. It is a deep learning NoGAN-based tool that helps you color your black and white videos. We need to run on Google Colab to colorize black and white photo. We deep technical knowledge in coding to use this tool as it is not straight forward as most of the times you will end-up with unknown errors as we have to run the code. I have the link for you if you want to try it out.

https://colab.research.google.com/github/jantic/DeOldify/blob/master/VideoColorizerColab.ipynb

Steps To Colorize Videos Using Deoldify

You can color black and white videos by following the steps in the link below:

https://colab.research.google.com/github/jantic/DeOldify/blob/master/VideoColorizerColab.ipynb

Pros:

  1. It is free and open source.

Cons:

1. The software is quite complicated to use for everyday users and requires in-depth technical knowledge that is difficult. Does not have a user interface. It runs on servers so technical knowledge is needed.

2. It fails repeatedly so coloring a video is hard and time consuming.

3. Errors are hard to analyze and fix.

Which One Is Better: Deoldify Or Pixbim Video Colorize AI

If we compare the two software for colorization of film, Pixbim Video Colorize AI is the best option. The tool is easy to use and we can get a color video even if we don’t have technical knowledge. You just have to load the black and white video, and the software will quickly colorize the black and white video, it runs on your PC or laptop and not on servers so data privacy is not an issue, thanks to its intelligent AI technology.

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