Old Photo help needed (which technique used?)

Willie Jan · Oct 4, 2010

I am 100% sure is from before 1937 because the stakes with sails were taken down in that year. I do not know in what year the print was made however.

Ian Grant · Oct 4, 2010

As the OP "Willie Jan" has told us the original doesn't have the blue in the sky or highlights there's nothing whatsoever to indicate the original was colour.

Willie Jan said:
It is all reddish. Your are right that it looks blue in the highlights here. Looks like some change has been made after upload.... The original is white in the highlights.

Sometimes JPEG compression caused colour artifacts.

Ian

AgX · Oct 4, 2010

Convcerning availability:

Photo Engineer said:
Agfa and Kodak both had a color print material in the 40s if not earlier.

Agfa chromogenic paper was ready about 1941/42 but was not released. (As was the complementary camera film.)
Kodak introduced their first chromogenic colour print material in 1941 (on acetate base), followed by another material in 1942. GAF (Agfa-Ansco) followed in 1943 with two materials (one on acetate base). None of which would have come to the occupied Netherlands or into Germany..

Q.G. · Oct 4, 2010

PE,

Your interpretation is way too optimistic.

What you have managed to do in PS is to colourize the image. Differences in colour in the result are a result of contrast and differences in densities of the colour in the original, and do not differentiate between parts in the original - would it have been an original colour photo - that would/show show different colours.
The right colours aren't in the right places either: both the original and your version show (the same) colours in (the same) places were they make no sense at all.

I have tried to analyze the original, compare the "restored" version to the original, and still see no proof at all that it would have been a colour print, and not a colourized monochrome print.

clayne · Oct 4, 2010

Ian Grant said:
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

PWT will easily take on this same satanic color with excessive selenium toning.

You can approach it with runaway brown toning too.

Ian Grant · Oct 4, 2010

clayne said:
PWT will easily take on this same satanic color with excessive selenium toning.

You can approach it with runaway brown toning too.

Very true, there's many ways to skin a cat

I can think of 3 ways to get near that colour fairly easily, how close is more a function of the paper emulsion than anything else. I'd forgotten about a PWT print I left in Selenium after the doorbell rang at Easter

Ian

bblhed · Oct 4, 2010

I'm not saying that this is the process that was used, but if you are trying to reproduce the photograph shown, I have achieved similar results to what you have shown by tea staining Cyanotypes. Although I doubt it is the case, stained cyanotype is a process that could have been used to make that photo in the first place, and it would have held up quite well as it is an archival quality process as well. If you decide to try making a Cyanotype, remember that it is a contact printing method, so if you want a 4X6 print you will need a 4X6 camera.

Good luck, and I hope you are able to reproduce the photo the way you want, when you do, please let us know how you did it.

Photo Engineer · Oct 4, 2010

Well, firstoff, Ian is avoiding one major issue. I would like to see some of his "colored" B&W. He claims to have some and I think it fair that he post one.

Now, on to the critiques. I agree with them all as being possible, except for the fact that there are several problems. The colorization, if it took place, is too well confined to the right places. Blue in the sky, autumnal colors in leaves and red in the shirt are clues especially when next to the red shirt is a white shirt.

When I try to colorize a B&W print using PS, it is quite dismal and the colors are quite random. And, in addition, I have seen faded color prints that resemble the one in the OP. Having looked at literally thousands of color prints that were faded almost to that point, I was struck by the resemblance among them all.

Now, back in the 30s there were many tri-color cameras in use and a variety of color processes being used to make prints. All of these methods were rather inferior to anything that we routinely see today, and in fact some of them closely resemble the original post after years of keeping.

I cannot say that this is a "fact" due to scanning artifacts and the condition of the original. All I can say is that I am pretty well sure that this is probably not a simple toned print nor any other simple process. But then, the defects all combined may be fooling me. I'll wait to see what Grant supplies. I suggest that some others give it a try too!

PE

Ian Grant · Oct 4, 2010

Err, I'm not avoiding any issues at all, my Grandparents wedding photo (group shot) is in the UK, as are the reddish coloured images I have on warm toned papers. I'm not going to try and recreate them (cheat) from a few thousand miles away in Photoshop Besides whichALL the 1920's - 50's & 60's Manuals/Data guides from Agfa, Gevaert, Ilford, Kodak etc describe how to obtain just these colours using certain developer/paper combinations.

I don't disagree that the JPEG image here may show some traces of colour but as Willie Jan told us all that his original print has white highlights not blue and that the JPEG he posted doesn't match the original then trying to read anything from that JPEG is just not valid.

Ian

Photo Engineer · Oct 4, 2010

If reading from this is not valid, then why even try to guess?

My point was that the coincidences were too great for me to just accept the simple solution. We will never know for sure without a microscopic analysis of the print.

Ian, I have manuals from the 40s, 50s, and 60s. I also have the Kodak books on Creative Darkroom Techniques. I'm aware of what can be done. I just wish to point out that this print resembles old color photos that I have seen in Kodak archives and a number of prints that I have produced after severe fading.

PE

Q.G. · Oct 4, 2010

I have looked at the pic posted and your correction, PE, but really do not see your coincidences.

If you tweak, push, shuff or pull colour enough to, say, make the trees look a bit greenish, the entire picture will look greenish. Same with other colours.
If you examine the colour chanhhels, there is no significant difference anywhere in the image. In short: it's all very much the same colour. Everywhere.

So i really do think you are a bit too optimistic. I can't see it being anything but a tinted monochrome image (with a blueish cast in the highlights due to we don't know).

Photo Engineer · Oct 4, 2010

You may very well be right, or you may just be expressing an opinion as I have. My opinion only carries the weight of having viewed so many faded color photos from so many manufacturers but still no surety.

Please take a look again though. A scanner somehow "changed" the sky to blue in the OP. But it left the boy's shirt white. The man's shirt is red. This is meaningful to me. So, maybe it is optimism or maybe you are pessimistic, but the only fact that remains is that we do not know anything for sure.

Kodachrome existed in 1937 (having been introduced in 1935) as did Agfacolor neu. This might have been a print from one of them.

PE

clayne · Oct 4, 2010

Occam's Razor.

I highly doubt this was a color print.

Photo Engineer · Oct 5, 2010

Comparisons

Guys;

I have prepared 3 comparisons of prints that are about 50 years old that you might want to judge. These are just scanned, no changes.

I have also consulted with a world expert and member of the ANSI committee on image stability on the OP. He has rendered an opinion.

Ok, here are 3 unaltered scans. Which are B&W and which are color?

I will post my experts opinon (anonymously) and the information after your comments.

PE

AgX · Oct 5, 2010

Great idea with those prints.

AgX · Oct 5, 2010

I made up my mind: #2 and #3 were originally true colour images.

clayne · Oct 6, 2010

Yep, I'd say #1 was the b+w as well.

railwayman3 · Oct 6, 2010

I'm sure that No. 1 is B&W (maybe some kind of sepia toning) and that No 2 was definitely color. I'm unsure about No 3, but there are hints of color in the sky and unevenness in the tones of some area which might indicate a faded color print?

2F/2F · Oct 6, 2010

I am in no way an expert, but I like playing games, so what the heck. To my eyes all three of those could be (or could have been in the past, at any rate) color photos. If I was told that at least one of them was definitely monochrome, I guess I would have to pick number one as the b/w one, though I am really behind my initial guess.

Willie Jan · Oct 6, 2010

me too for number 1 b/w and 3 color.
Number two i wouldnt know...

Q.G. · Oct 6, 2010

The OP's print is monochrome.

Ian Grant · Oct 6, 2010

Q.G. said:
The OP's print is monochrome.

Quite right

Ian

cowanw · Oct 6, 2010

I will take a guess for fun. I will say the left evergreen tree is the monochrome.

Photo Engineer · Oct 6, 2010

Gee, the two opinions that would have been of great value to me were not given.

I guess they don't know. If they don't know the answer or have an opinion to my simple question though, how could they answer the OP?

My expert has answered me on the OP. He says that there is insufficient evidence to judge. It could go either way, ie. color or B&W. He reminded me that the date of the original photo may be a red herring in the sense that the print made from the original may post date the original photo.

PE

railwayman3 · Oct 7, 2010

Photo Engineer said:
.

"Ok, here are 3 unaltered scans. Which are B&W and which are color?

I will post my experts opinon (anonymously) and the information after your comments."

PE

"I guess they don't know. If they don't know the answer or have an opinion to my simple question though, how could they answer the OP?"

Oh, so it was a trick question all the time.....

So after we had tried (to the best of our own ideas and experiences) to answer the OP's legitimate and interesting query, we find that you had the solution all the time? Or, if there's no definitive answer to a particular question, all discussion is valueless? That would surely make a large part of the APUG forum valueless?

Not sure what this was trying to prove? . :confused:

Old Photo help needed (which technique used?)

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