Image Colorization with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

We present a convolutional-neural-network-based system that faithfully colorizes black and white photographic images without direct human assistance. We explore various network architectures, objectives, color spaces, and problem formulations. The final classification-based model we build generates colorized images that are significantly more aesthetically-pleasing than those created by the baseline regression-based model, demonstrating the viability of our methodology and revealing promising avenues for future work.