Old Photo help needed (which technique used?)

Willie Jan

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Hi,
i got a very old photo of a windmill here in the village and was wondering which technique was used to get it as shown. My wife is a miller and i am building a website for her about this windmill that has been restored from scratch last year.

This is the real color (reddish). The photo is taken from before 1937 after which the wings were removed just before the war.

Is it a dye just like sepia or is it a different technique?
Thanks.
 

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Ian Grant

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You could process many of the older warm tone papers to achieve that sort of colour. The method is in all the data guides Agfa, Gevaert, Ilford, Kodak etc. just over exposure by 3-4X and long development times in quite dilute warm tone print developer. Since the level of cadmium etc was reduced and then removed entirely more modern papers don't respond in the same way.

Ian
 

Gerald C Koch

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Could also be a warm tone paper that was toned with gold.
 

Lyn Arnold

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I am only guessing...but I can remember (pre-WWII) photographic "proofs" of exactly those colours taken by professional photographers, usually specializing in family portraiture. The studios provided "proofs" of their images for the customer to choose which ones for final printing. The proofs faded over time, but that was perhaps some 30 years or more if they were kept away from light.
 

Ian Grant

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last year i got close to that colour accidentally with some Polywarmtone, I'd neglected to stop the lens down so the paper was about 8X over exposed, I pulled the test strip from the developer after about 15 seconds.

The Old Record Rapid & Portriga with cadmium in could get close to that red. It was a very easy technique.

Ian
 

Gerald C Koch

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This is a long shot but nickel toner produces a red image. Many years ago formulas were developed to change the color of prints. A wide variety of colors were possible.
 
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fschifano

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I got something close to that when I was using some Forte warmtone RC paper. Exposed and processed it normally, then toned it in selenium until completion. Never seen it happen with any other paper I've used, though I suspect something similar would happen with just about any warm toned paper.
 

Photo Engineer

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This looks like a genuine color photo from that era that has faded badly.

Why do I say this? Simple color correction in Photo Shop gives me a passable full color image which would most likely not be the case if any other B&W process had been used.

PE
 

Photo Engineer

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Ian Grant said:
Please show us the results

Ian
Click to expand...

Ian;

I did a quick copy and paste, without resizing the image. I then did not save it. Sorry. I had no idea that anyone would be interested in seeing it. Besides, it was too "digital" for my taste and for APUG.

PE
 
OP
OP

Willie Jan

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I also have converted it in PS to b/w. It's somewhat to gray but everything is visible. I also have a postcard from the same scene in which the right house is completely dark. Here it shows fine. She has another photo of a different scene which has the same color. it's not baryta paper, the paper has somewhat the same thickness as pe paper.
 

AgX

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Photo Engineer said:
This looks like a genuine color photo from that era that has faded badly.
Click to expand...


You missed one point:
the date of origin.

That photo was taken in 1937 or before. That fading you refer to is the fading of chromogenic paper. But in 1937 was not yet any chromogenic paper made.

The most likely alternative, an imbibition process, as any any other alternatives would not likely show such fading. And it was expensive, thus most unlikely used on sich subject. It would be on a rather large print size too. (We still don't know the size of the print.)


The original transmission photograph may have been printed later on chromogenic paper though.
 
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Q.G.

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I would love to see PE's restored version to prove me wrong, but it's not a faded colour photograph.
Apart from some blueish cast, everything is a shade of the same colour, with minor variations that do not point into the direction an original colour would have been.
 

Ian Grant

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Have to agree it's never been a colour original.

My Grandparents wedding photo is much the same colour, it's a silver gelatin contact print from 1910.

Ian
 

Photo Engineer

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Restored windmill

I've attempted the restoration.

Here is my reasoning.

1. Agfa and Kodak both had a color print material in the 40s if not earlier. We do not know when the original photo was made nor with what, but color films existed in 1937. Those films had a bad cyan dye fade problem and an orange dmin problem in image areas as the print or slide aged.

2. Restoration via PS recreated an image that appears to be a fall scene with normal(ish) flesh tones and the man is wearing a red shirt. The highlights show some of the orange dmin. But, the sky is reasonably blue. The whites retain their whiteness but highlights with dye have turned orange.

3. With restoration, you can see some green in the hedges and tree highlights.

So, I see several colors including Blue, Orange, Red, Green and Flesh. I discount any pigment process due to the good stability, but then this might be a rather poor example of someone's printing technique. IDK. The print original sample is suggestive of a 2 color or 3 color reproduction process with severe image degradation.

Without definitive proof, any of us can be right or wrong. I submit this to you as an example only and remind you that PS has a mind of its own, often supplying things that simply are not there.

If it is there though, I feel fully justified in my conclusions based on what I see. OTOH, you may be wishing to see the sample just to jump all over me. If so, have fun. It is not that big of an issue due to the digital transformations, lack of information and severe aging. The original size and the resultant digital artifacts have not helped this issue.

I doubt if it was hand colored, as these would have probably been pigments.

I have tried to give the best estimate that I can of what this original might be.

PE
 

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Photo Engineer

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I would like to see some of Ian's examples. They would be quite interesting!

Since I have bowed to your wishes and taken some time at it, I would like some feedback on your prints and your grandparent's wedding photo.

I would add to the above post that all of the "right" colors are in the "right" place. The sky is blue and nothing else is. The trees look autumnal in color, and the flesh tones are in the right place. Maybe artifacts or maybe not. The point is that this is opinion at this point. I have used my reasoning on this. You are free to use yours.

Thanks.

PE
 
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