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You in the 1960s, in black and white or colour

The early 1960s sat on the line between black and white and colour. Give Erafy a photo and the year 1960, and the new picture it makes with AI can land on either side.

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AI photo app · Free to download · iPhone · 18+

Black-and-white 1960s street photo of a woman in a gingham sundress beside parked cars

Nobody in the examples is a real person — the before photos are invented faces. These are our best results, not average ones. Sometimes AI can't handle it and modifies your face. All we can offer is a try.

What a 1960s photograph looked like

The everyday camera of 1960 was a small plastic box with a built-in flash, taking twelve square pictures on a roll of film. Its film now saw every colour, unlike the red-blind stock of the 1950s, so skin fell into natural greys and a blue sky printed darker than its clouds. Prints came back about three inches square, white-bordered, sometimes date-stamped in the margin.

Colour was climbing: by 1962 it was close to even with black and white, though it still cost a good deal more and wanted sun or a flashbulb. A colour print of the day was warm and soft with an amber-yellow cast. Slides were the vivid alternative, and a new instant camera could, on very fast film, shoot a dim room with no flash and hand over a print a minute later.

For 1960 Erafy picks from those cameras at random, so a result may be a square box-camera print, a flashbulb picture, a 35 mm frame, a colour print, a slide, or an instant print. With Situation on it places you in a scene of the year: a Twist party in a rec room, a car being washed in a driveway, a coffee bar with red vinyl stools.

Ten years on, colour was the default. See the 1970s.

More from the 60s

  • 1960 · two seconds, silent

Other years

  • Sepia 1900 portrait of a woman in a high-collared blouse on a city street with horse carriages
    1900Early roll film, black and white
  • 1910 early colour photograph of a woman in a lace blouse seated at a garden table
    1910Glass plates, film packs and early colour plates
  • Black-and-white 1920s street portrait of a woman in a pale dress and a long pearl necklace
    1920Orthochromatic black and white
  • Sepia 1930s street photo of a woman in a floral dress holding a handbag
    1930Roll-film snapshots
  • Black-and-white 1940s street portrait of a woman in a tailored jacket
    1940Wartime black and white
  • Black-and-white 1950s street portrait of a woman in a cardigan and plaid skirt
    1950Black and white, and the first colour
  • Faded 1970s colour photo of a woman in a floral blouse on a sunny street
    1970Warm, faded colour film
  • 1980s colour snapshot of a woman in a striped sweater in a bedroom with posters and a TV
    198035 mm colour, pocket cameras, flash
  • 1990s colour film photo of a woman in a green sweater and jeans on a campus street
    1990Drugstore colour film and disposables
  • 2000 colour snapshot with a date stamp: a woman in a lilac T-shirt on a campus walkway
    2000Date stamps and the first digital cameras
  • 2010 phone photo with a heavy vignette: a woman sitting by a city waterfront
    2010Early phone cameras
  • 2013 filtered phone selfie of a woman by a stone arch in a city park
    2013Retro filter apps
  • 2016 phone photo of a woman at a café table with a latte
    2016Phone portrait mode
  • 2019 phone photo of a woman on a beach at sunset
    2019Night mode and ultrawide
  • 2022 phone photo of a woman at a café with a latte
    2022The modern phone camera
  • 2025 phone photo of a woman at a café table with latte art
    2025Today's phones

Questions

Were 1960s photos black and white or colour?

Both, and the balance was shifting. In 1960 most family snapshots were still black and white, with colour kept for travel and special occasions because the film and prints cost several times as much and needed bright sun or flash. By 1962 the two were close to even, and by about 1970 colour was the normal family snapshot.

Why are old 1960s photos square?

Because the cheap cameras most people owned took square frames: four by four centimetres on the small roll film of the plastic flash boxes, six by six on twin-lens cameras. The drugstore printed them as squares of about three inches with white borders. Rectangular frames came from 35 mm cameras, which in 1960 were still the hobbyist's choice.

What would I look like in the 60s?

Erafy makes a new picture from your photo in the style of the year you pick, so how much it resembles you varies from one go to the next. It varies most in the black-and-white years and in the crafts before 1900, where faces are drawn in the craft's style. We make no promise about how any result will look.

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