Adobe unveils technology to let algorithm colorize black and white images

Adobe at its own MAX conference showcased a technology to quickly colorize grayscale-only images. It uses a neural network to guess which colors are the most obvious.

The neural network is trained to recognize faces and common objects and to match them with the most logical colors. In addition, he can estimate textures and shadows in the image and adjust the colors accordingly, writes 9to5 Mac.

Coloring a black and white image with the function, which is called Scribbler, therefore takes a few seconds. Coloring such images takes a person a much longer period of time. It is unknown how people judge the result of coloring and whether the software makes many mistakes, for example.

For now, Scribbler is a standalone demo without integration into an Adobe program. It uses Adobe’s Sensei neural network platform. It is unknown if and when the software company will offer the function in a program.