Stunning restored & colorized photos of old Rotterdam before WW-II brought to life (1880 to 1940)

Video Description

Welcome to the beautiful city of Rotterdam as it was before WWII. In this documentary we will focus on the Dutch city of Rotterdam in the period before WW-II. The documentary is based on original B&W photographs that have been meticulously restored and colorized with the latest photo AI software. The results are truely spectacular. In order to get some idea what life really was like in Rotterdam, each restored and colorized photo has been brought to life using image-to-video AI software, thus creating 5 to 10 seconds of moving images for each photograph. Some viewers may call such work "AI slop", but in this case the viewer can clearly see and compare how each original B&W photograph has been restored, colorized and brought to life. The used software is the latest of the latest and has surpassed earlier photo and video colorizers like DeOldify and Adobe photoshop to such extent that one can only be amazed and maybe even become emotional about the truly stunning results. Using such software is currently possible for almost everyone. Nevertheless particular expertise and skill is required to get the best results. It all starts with knowing how to improve the B&W source material by performing brightness & contrast correction, noice removal, correcting crooked angles and much more. Formulating the correct text prompt is also something one has to learn, bearing in mind that these AI's have a will of their own and frequently do unwanted things. In this film you will see and example of a 1920s Rotterdam tram that suddenly is changed into a much later 1960s model. The used colorizer has an active AI user interface by which it can be instructed to change the color of objects in the image and make other needed corrections. For example, Rotterdam's trams used to be bright yellow during the per-war period, but in stead the colorizer frequently used green and red for the trams. Enough about the production process. Time to really enjoy the footage. Viewers should be aware that the entire old city of Rotterdam was completely destroyed during the first days of the war, namely on the 14th of May 1940 when 800 German bombers carpet bombed the city. The municipality of Rotterdam thereafter decided to carry out an long time standing wish to completely rebuild the city with modern architecture. Many old buildings could have been saved but the civil servants ordered all remainders to be pulled down. Those who have visited Rotterdam will recognize how rigorous the modernisation has been. Before the war Rotterdam's old city center was comparable to Amsterdam. It had beautiful centuries old architecture and characteristic streets with canals, statues and homes with beautiful facades. This film will clearly show you what Rotterdam was like. You will see wonderful places like the Delftsche Poort, Delftse Vaart and the nearby Hofplein. The Coolsingel can be considered as the heart of the city with it characteristic townhall, nearby Beurs and old Postoffice. It is here where the Dutch population celebrates the victories of Rotterdam's football club "Feyenoord". Rotterdam was and still is a very important harbor city. It serves as the water gateway to Europe, annually welcoming thousands of international merchant ships with their cargos destined for The Netherlands and the whole European "hinterland". The harbor is an integral part of Rotterdam with many inner harbours that follow dug out side arms of the river Muse that flows through the city. You will see the great Muse bridges, the longest being a pair of road and rail bridges. When watching the documentary you will notice descriptions of each location underneath the B&W source photograph. If you are interested, take a map of per-war Rotterdam and try to trace these locations. The documentary also shows many aerial views that should provide more guidance. The footage consists of three parts, namely - Part-1 is the afore mentioned comparison of the used B&W photos with the colorized version and the corresponding AI generated moving footage. - Part-2 is a collection of all the AI generated colorized video scenes and - Part-3 is a slide-show of the AI restored and colorized photos. A second video is currently in the making that in the same way will show Rotterdam during and after the destructions of WW-II. Now please watch this documentary without further commentary. Thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe to my channel! Music: Trevor Kowalski Source: Stadsarchief Rotterdam and other.