Colorizing for Liseberg

The amusement fair Liseberg was founded in 1923 as part of the World Exhibition. An enormous investment for the city of Gothenburg, the rich and interesting history of Liseberg has been an integral part of the city's heritage and history. As the 100 years celebration was fast approaching, Liseberg decided to commission a book detailing its rich history, using the incredible photographs from their archives.

I was asked to come and work for Liseberg as a colorizer. My boss gave me old photographs and thanks to his vast knowledge of history and attention to detail we set out together to accurately recolor the past. He would delve into old archives, finding paintings, articles and documents. I would use his findings to recreate these scenes, trying to come as close as possible to the way things would've looked so many years ago. These are but a few of the images I painted. Some are included in the book “Jubileumsboken” along with a selection of the very best photographs throughout the years. Some have been used for marketing and others still can be found on “Lisepedia”, the encyclopedia of all things Liseberg, created and curated by my former boss.

The Process

When I recieve the black and white originals, the first step is always to try to clean up any damages or dust left after the scanning of the pictures. Some of the images I worked on were 100 years old, and the passage of time will of course leave its mark. We wanted to create an accurate image of how the world looked back then, therefore we got rid of most imperfections that the images had.

Next I used an AI to lay the groundwork as I started to paint. However, I was not very impressed with the results. When the AI does not know what it is looking at (which is most of the things most of the time), it guesses, and gives us the cyan and purple scattered around the image. As I will have to repaint all of it regardless, this does not matter too much, and the things I do like about this technology is that it is a nice time saver. Notably, most skies and trees are serviceable if you don't look too closely.

Finally, I get to work. I mix with layers and paint these images by hand, using my trusty tablet in Photoshop. My boss, an expert in the history of Liseberg searched into historical texts, articles and paintings from the time and gave me directions of how the images would have looked. “You point, I paint” is what I used to say. It is a time-consuming process and the more details the more time it takes, but that is what is so rewarding about it. As I color, the people from long ago come to life again.

Photo: Anders Karnell, Göteborgs Stadsmuseum

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