NEW YORK — William J. “Sandy” Colton, an Associated Press photographer and editor for two decades who supervised innovative changes including the news agency’s conversion from black and white to all-color photography, died on Christmas Day. He was 83.

Colton, who had battled cancer in recent years, died of heart failure at his home in Bleecker, a small town in upstate New York, according to his son, James. After retiring from AP in 1984, Colton, his wife Irene and a group of friends built a log house as the Coltons’ permanent residence.

Born Oct. 5, 1925 in Johnstown, N.Y., to a family named Sands, William was later adopted by Dr. Sidney J. Colton, a local physician. After attending high schools in Johnstown and Crockett, Tex., he graduated from Gulf Coast Military Academy in Gulfport, Miss., in 1944.

During the Korean war, Colton was an Air Force enlisted man assigned to the staff of Pacific Stars and Stripes, the unofficial U.S. military newspaper, where he specialized in writing war features.

Frustrated by having to rely on Signal Corps photographers, he established the Tokyo-based paper’s own photo operation and later, as a civilian, became its chief photographer, covering events across Asia and the Middle East.

Colton also wrote a historical account of the Air Force Research and Development Command, but turned down a subsequent offer of an officer’s commission and a job as a USAF historian. “He said he was having too much fun covering the war,” James Colton said.

Returning to the United States in 1961, Colton was hired by AP in New York. Except for a three-year stint as photo editor at the Washington D.C. Evening Star during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations in 1962-64, he spent his career with the news agency.

Colton covered space launches and other events while directing various projects including photographs for AP’s book division, the conversion to color photography in the late 1970s and a color slide service for television that remains in use today. He also wrote a regular AP column on photography.

“Sandy Colton’s versatility as both writer and picture guy made him especially valuable,” said Hal Buell, former AP chief photo editor. “His experience, technical expertise and tireless work ethic helped AP solve problems at a time when photography was changing to all color, and eventually to digital transmission and digital photography.”

In retirement he was a charter member of the Eddie Adams Workshop, an annual free workshop for 100 young photojournalists chosen from around the world, founded in 1988 by Adams, a former AP Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, who died in 2004. Despite failing health, Colton attended the 2008 session last October.

Colton is survived by his wife, Irene; two sons by a previous marriage, Jay, a retired Time magazine picture editor and James, picture editor of Sports Illustrated, a sister and three grandchildren.