artificial intelligence or not, can be very helpful.

However, we must be very careful about what

they present to us and not leave out our own

sense of reason.

Historical Photo Analysis and Color

Recognition

Systems for defining the colors of objects

in historical photographs will certainly find

considerable applications in our field. Not that

I think the end is near for debates over beer

between modelers about the actual shade of

RLM 66 or the fact that technology could so

easily determine the exact shades of camouflage

colors, but it is already clear that the potential

for its help is there, and it is significant

Of course, limitations will apply here too, and

we must not lose our ability to be reasonably

skeptical or critical. The quality of the input

material also plays a very important role here.

In a completely different way, this system will

be able to deal with a high-quality scan of an

original historical photograph and in a different

way with an image downloaded from the

Internet and resampled and color-converted or

corrected many times.

The outputs we are offered - and I stress again

- we need to be careful with them and apply due

scrutiny, interesting insights. And even if the

May 2023

color solution is wrong, the colorization itself

in the sense of what the AI sees can draw our

attention to interesting details that we would

have missed when studying these photos in the

original black and white. I can certainly imagine

such an aid utilized by our experts dealing with

camouflage schemes for kits. But everything in

moderation….

As in the previous examples, there is a wide

qualitative range of systems in this area. From

web applications to professional systems

used, such as, for example, color films. You

can now incorporate feedback from users and

really learn and advance your approach when

analyzing shades of black and white photos. One

more example:

This example is a portion of a photo of a Bf

109G flown by Fhj.Fw. Hans-Theo Ableiter of

III./JG 4. At the far left is a scan of the original

photograph, in the middle and at the right are two

color reproductions made using two different AI

systems. Although the quality is different (one

system is a professional film system, the other

is a commercially available converter), the color

reproductions in both cases match fairly well.

The colors of RLM 75 and RLM 76 can be quite

clearly distinguished against a light background,

which logically should probably be the rather

gray variant of RLM 76. Note how each system

reproduces the individual spots. The simpler one

(on the right) made 74 even from some stains,

which the first system identified as RLM 75.

So that it all isn’t too easy, I'm attaching one

more picture showing how AI coped with color

resolution in another case. Many of you know

that this airplane is supposed to be all red with

a black spinner…

It is obvious that the tools at our disposal today,

whether correctly or otherwise considered

artificial intelligence, can be of tremendous

help and will increasingly be so as time goes

on. However, we should not turn off our own

judgment and ability to draw conclusions. To

end in style, I asked ChatGPT to say hello to the

readers of our newsletter:

Dear readers of Info Eduard magazine,

I hope this message finds you well and that you

continue to find the content of this publication

informative and engaging. Thank you for your

continued support and readership, and I wish

you all the best in your personal and academic

pursuits.

Best regards, ChatGPT

INFO Eduard

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