About Past in Color

Every detail is the original photograph. Only the color is new.

We sell proven pieces of history

On Canal Street in 1907, three electric streetcars stood abreast while a Detroit Publishing Company photographer opened his shutter. We can tell you the number painted on the nearest car, the St. Louis factory where it was built in 1899, and the engineering firm that drew its design for New Orleans. That is the standard of this store. Anyone can sell a picture of a city. We publish photographs whose stories survive checking, and we put the evidence on the page: every claim in our descriptions is either visible in the plate itself or carries a numbered source you can follow.

What we make

Past in Color publishes small collections of historical photographs, restored in full color and printed in a small, fixed edition per photograph. The edition size is stated on each print's page. Once an edition sells out, it closes and the photograph moves to our archive. We do not reprint.

How a print is made

Each collection starts in a public archive, with original large-format negatives and glass plates digitized by institutions such as the Library of Congress. We work only from the highest-resolution scan the archive publishes, often twenty megapixels or more from a century-old negative.

Then we do the reading: the archive record, period newspapers, institutional histories, and the plate itself under magnification. The photographs on this site have been dated by their own copyright cartouches, painted street numbers, and streetcar roof boards. Where the record tells us what color something was, we follow it. Where it does not, we choose colors plausible for the place and the period, and we say so. The color is an informed restoration, not a claim.

The color is then transferred onto the original scan itself, so the print keeps every grain, every line, and every detail of the photograph. Nothing is redrawn, sharpened, or invented. Only the color layer is new.

Materials

Prints are made on premium luster photo paper, on canvas, and framed, produced close to where they ship and delivered with tracking. Shipping is included in the price.

Sourcing and rights

We print photographs that are in the public domain, and we credit the source archive and the photographer, where the record names one, on every product page. Where the photographer was never recorded, we say so rather than guess. See our image sourcing and takedown policy.

Who we are

Past in Color is an independent studio in the Netherlands. Questions about a photograph, a source, or an order are welcome at support@pastincolor.com. If you ask us about a specific edition, we will answer plainly.