Turn old black-and-white pics to colour

Google has unveiled new technology that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to convert your old black-and-white photos into colour.

The ‘Colorize’ tool (pictured), still being developed, will be added to Google Photos ( https://photos. google.com) when it’s ready for release. Google said it was inspired by how many people use its Photoscan app ( www. google.com/photos/scan) to scan old black-and-white pictures.

The tool will ‘learn’ which colours work best for particular elements in a photo, such as green for grass. It will be much trickier to colorise things like skin, so Google will launch the tool only when it’s “really right”.

It was demonstrated during the company’s I/O show for developers in early May, along with other AI photo tools. One leaves an object in colour while turning the background black and white. Another recognises a person in a photo and prompts you to share it with them. Google also showed how the Photos tool can turn photos of documents into PDFS.

Google also showed off new features for Lens, its tool for identifying objects in pictures. Using Smart Text Selection, you can bring up search results for an object simply by highlighting it on screen.

As an example, Google’s Aparna Chennapragada showed how highlighting the word ‘ratatouille’ on a menu produced a definition of the meal, plus photos of it.