coloristé

Coloristé is a term that refers to the practice of selectively adding color to a black and white image or film. This technique was particularly popular in the early days of cinema before the widespread adoption of full-color filming processes. Coloristé was often achieved through hand-painting individual frames or using stencil-based dyeing processes. The most common application involved adding naturalistic colors to elements like the sky, clothing, or blood.

The advent of Technicolor and other early color film technologies gradually rendered manual coloristé obsolete for most commercial productions. However, the technique experienced a resurgence in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as a deliberate artistic choice in certain films and art installations. Modern digital tools allow for much more precise and efficient colorization, often employed to restore old black and white footage or to achieve a specific aesthetic. This modern digital colorization is sometimes referred to by the same term, though it differs significantly in its execution from the historical hand-applied methods. The artistic intent behind coloristé, whether historical or contemporary, is often to enhance the mood, realism, or emotional impact of a visual work.