Stuart Humphryes


Stuart Humphryes is an English multimedia artist for print, film and television, and a social media content creator, chiefly known for his work enhancing early colour photography. His photo enhancement book The Colors of Life was published in 2023. He first rose to prominence colourising episodes of the British television series Doctor Who. He is widely known by his alias "BabelColour", a public persona that was created in 2006 with the launch of his YouTube channel.

Photographic enhancement process

Humphryes is principally known for the enhancement of early colour photography, such as Autochromes and Paget plates. He has popularised the autochrome process amongst the general public, with over 200,000 followers on his autochrome-enhancement Twitter feed. In interviews, Humphryes has stated that his photographic enhancement work includes the following steps: The digital removal of physical flaws; the restoration/recreation of any missing sections of the image; removal of dirt and blemishes; removal of staining or colour bleed; re-adjustment of saturation and luminance levels; colour rebalancing; noise reduction; and the employment of deep learning neural-network algorithms to remove grain whilst enhancing detail definition.

In print

Between 2025 and 2026, seven editions of the monthly Best of British magazine had covers which were enhanced and colourised by Humphryes. An editorial detailing his contributions to the magazine and his wider photo enhancement and Doctor Who-related work was published in August 2025.
In October 2024, Dutch photography magazine Digifoto Pro ran an 11-page feature and interview with Humphryes about his photo enhancement work
In August 2024, issue 337 of Best of British magazine published an article written by Humphryes concerning his uncle's appearance in a 1964 BBC Documentary entitled The Exceptional Child
In May 2024, the Vice Media Group ran an interview feature on Humphryes and his photographic enhancements, which appeared in various guises on their Vice Instagram social media platform and website Vice.com
The January 2024 edition of the UK-based print magazine PrintWeek published a three-page feature on Humphryes and his photographic enhancement work. An abridged featurette also appeared on their website
On 12 October 2023, The Times ran a feature on Humphryes' enhancement work and book.
On 3 October 2023, The Guardians Eyewitness centre-spread ran a feature of photographic enhancements by Humphryes, to mark the publication of his book The Colors of Life. This newspaper article ran longside an online feature.
In September 2023, Humphryes released a large format art-book entitled The Colors of Life, which collated over 200 of his enhanced autochromes and paget plates. The book was released by German publishers Gestalten.
In January 2023, The Radio Times interviewed Humphryes about his former colourisation work on Doctor Who and his opinions relating to the prospect of new colourisations for the series' 60th anniversary.
On 18 July 2022, the Portuguese news magazine Visão ran a feature-interview with Humphryes, exploring his photo enhancement work.
On 3 September 2021, The Times ran a 2-page article about the optical illusion of colour assimilation, prompted by a viral tweet by Humphryes, whom they interviewed about the phenomenon.
In August 2021, The Simple Things Magazine, issue #110, featured Humphryes' autochrome enhancements with the editor's recommendation to follow his Twitter and Instagram accounts. However, the magazine unintentionally published the wrong Twitter account details.
The June 2021 Doctor Who Magazine issue #564 published a 4-page article written by Humphryes on his search for, and restoration of, previously missing photographs of director Christopher Baker.
In March 2021, the French youth magazine Topo ran a 2-page feature on his photo enhancement work, focusing on the French roots of the autochrome process and its use during World War I.
The December 2020 and January 2021 issues of the US-based Wild West magazine included restoration and colourisation work by Humphryes, who had employed artificial neural networking to reconstruct and enhance the face of Billy the Kid from the only verified tintype portrait.
In October 2020, The National newspaper printed a feature on Humphryes and his autochrome enhancement work. The article focused on the Gulf region and consisted of an interview and restoration galleries.
In May 2020, to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, the Royal Mail issued commemorative coin presentation packs which included colourisation work by Humphryes.This work was marked by an interview and article in The Daily Mail on 03 May 2020, entitled "The Artist Putting His Own Stamp On Victory".
In February 2019, the London Evening Standard ran a feature on his colourisation work. Humphryes stated, "I try to be bold with my colours – most colourisers seem frightened of the medium and make their work pastel and faded. I’m of the opinion that if I’m going to add colour I may as well go the whole hog and make it bold and bright and colourful. That’s what real life should be, after all!"
In August 2018, the Edinburgh Evening News ran an interview with Humphryes about his restoration of colour film of 1930s Edinburgh.
In 2015, Humphryes colourised the cover of Mark Iveson's biographical reference book Cursed Horror Stars.
In 2012, Humphryes wrote a treatise on Doctor Who entitled 'Teatime and an Open Mind' for the non-fiction book You and Who. The book's editor J. R. Southall wrote in Starburst Magazine, "That internet legend from YouTube, known usually as BabelColour, submitted a much longer essay. It was an excellent piece of writing, and very important for a couple of reasons... it kind of gave the whole project a feeling of legitimacy. Now I could tell people that Stuart Humphryes had made a submission already, and even quote an extract from it as an example". In November 2014 Humphryes was one of the "big names in the Whovian community" interviewed by the Houston Press for his positive critical opinion of Series 8 of Doctor Who.
In 2005, Humphryes colourised Tele-snaps for issue 2 of Nothing at the End of the Lane – the magazine of Doctor Who Research and Restoration – in which he was interviewed about his colourisation work. He returned to this publication in 2008 to colourise the cover of their omnibus reprint of issues 1 and 2.

Social media

Humphryes runs the Babelcolour account on Twitter/X. In June 2020 he began tweeting early colour photographic enhancements, exceeding 200,000 followers by October 2022. In 2025, Humphryes extended his online presence by establishing photo enhancement accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Threads.

Notable posts

On 15 September 2022, Humphryes tweeted original colour footage from the 1952 Lying-in-state and funeral procession for the late King George VI. This tweet went viral and was subsequently featured by The Independent, The Guardian, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Star and LADbible. and was discussed on Jazz FM radio.
In October 2021, his series of enhanced Paget plates, originally taken by Frank Hurley during Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, were featured by Live Science.
On 30 August 2021, his viral tweet of Øyvind Kolås's colour assimilation grid prompted an article in various tabloids and The Times.
On 8 November 2018, Humphryes tweeted his own recitation of the Great War poem "In Flanders Fields" to mark the centenary of Armistice Day. This video was used by the Daily Mirror to head its article on war poetry.
On 30 September 2018, his tweet of a 1943 photograph, apparently showing the anachronous use of a mobile device, made international news. In the UK it was covered by media sites such as LADbible. and tabloid newspapers including the Daily Mirror, and The Sun, whilst in the US it was picked up by Fox News. Other international coverage included stories in Russia, Taiwan, Hungary, China and Vietnam.
On 29 August 2018 he tweeted colour film of 1930s Edinburgh which also prompted an article and interview in the Edinburgh Evening News.

Film colourisation

''The Daleks' Master Plan''

In 2005 Humphryes collaborated with James Russell, a design engineer who was one of the founder members of the Doctor Who Restoration Team and the son of film director Ken Russell to colourise the surviving 35mm film from the 1965 Doctor Who serial The Daleks' Master Plan. The colourised footage was incorporated into "The Dalek Tapes" documentary on the 2006 DVD release of Genesis of the Daleks. and as an extra on the Destiny of the Daleks blu-ray release in 2022.

''The Mind of Evil''

In 2009 Humphryes and Russell reunited to assess the viability of re-colourising the first episode of the 1971 Doctor Who serial The Mind of Evil which only existed in the BBC Archives as a monochrome film print. Their test sequence eventually led to the Doctor Who Restoration Team commissioning Humphryes in 2011 to recolourise the entire episode. According to Doctor Who: The Complete History, it was achieved "by a combination of hand colouring by multimedia artist Stuart Humphryes, and motion estimation software". Between 2011 and 2013 Humphryes was the sole colourising artist working alongside the video restoration company SVS Resources to complete the commercial colourisation of The Mind of Evil for the BBC.

Screenings

The newly colourised Mind of Evil was premiered at the British Film Institute on 10 March 2013. Humphryes was in attendance to answer questions on stage about the re-colourisation process The recolourised episodes also received a special screening, with a Q&A Restoration Panel, at Birmingham's annual Flatpack Film Festival on Saturday 30 March 2013 and at the Belfast Film Festival on Thursday 18 April 2013.
Following its original release on DVD in 2013, the re-colourised version became the broadcast default, being subsequently televised in the US on Retro TV on 15 October 2014 and KBTC Public Television on Saturday 23 January 2016. It is also the version currently available for subscription download in the US on BritBox and was live-streamed by Twitch on four occasions in June 2018 and January 2019. It was later released on Blu-ray in 2021.
Clips and details of the serial's recolourisation were covered by a special feature on the BBC evening news on 12 June 2013.