Artist Mads Madsen has an amazing skill for colorizing old black and white photographs. Even beside their original counterpart the results are impressive, bringing a new dimension of realism to historic images. An American Civil War buff, Madsen’s 450+ portfolio of images can be seen on minus.com where he has amassed over 2.6 million views. Many of his subjects are portraits of commanders from the civil war.

Madsen says it takes him about 20-30 minutes for a portrait but that the outdoor shots and images with lots of people and background take substantially longer. For a video tutorial of the process involved, you can check him out on YouTube. For a detailed step-by-step tutorial, check out this fascinating post on civilwartalk.com. Oh and I forgot to mention he’s only 18! A gifted young talent with much promise ahead, keep up the amazing work Mr. Madsen!