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Photo fixing

Posted: 05 Sep 2016 10:40
by bertvorgon
I don't know if this will be useful to many, it sure is for me.

Back in the 70's here, a photo lab here had a problem with their chemistry for a year or so. It did not point itself out till many years after the fact, as people like me had segments of their photo albums turn this tinted colour. I was always very diligent about putting my pictures in albums as soon as I got them back, so I have a very lineal section of time where all my pictures turned.

As we have been going over the history of racing here on the site, I of course found that the time period when I started racing had some of those pictures turn. This prompted me to ask for some help from my photographer son, who tracked down this open source program that can very simply edit these faded/yellowed pictures.

https://www.gimp.org/

If you are interested I can PM you you the specific set of steps to edit your picture for colour.

Here is an example of the difference it can make. Again, this picture is from a day at Boundry Bay, at the height of the 510 resurgence, where all the 510's came out and we all won our respective classes that day! That is my brown, 1972 in the middle. It got wiped out in 1977 on the Sea to Sky Highway by a chimp in a 4 x 4 truck.

Re: Photo fixing

Posted: 05 Sep 2016 11:14
by datzenmike
My photos from the 70s are also that orange tint. Might be the Kodak paper itself. No one thought much about it having to last 40 years.

Re: Photo fixing

Posted: 05 Sep 2016 12:15
by 510rob
...and here I thought it was just due to the yellow house effect of the 1970s

Re: Photo fixing

Posted: 06 Sep 2016 05:15
by Three B's Racing
Photo albums of yester year had pvc in the clear sheet covers that attacked the colors of photos and could cause color shift, not always but could and did with some. Today and for the past maybe 15+ years good quality photo storage albums/sleeves have been pvc free keeping color shift in check. I have boxes of photos and maybe 2% of them have color shift but thankfully their tossable photos. All my Orange County Raceway, Riverside, Bakersfield, Pomona shots still look pretty good. Naturally if you shoot in B&W problem solved 8>) I used to shoot a little for Raceway Parks back in the 70's. Ever notice how your quality slides didn't shift in color? well mine haven't and I have Kodachrome 25 slides from `71 to the digital era!!

Re: Photo fixing

Posted: 06 Sep 2016 05:31
by bertvorgon
In my same albums, other years are fine. I hear you on the proper plastic storage sleeves, I have a lot of old documents that I have made sure are stored properly.

I know for sure ( photography was a hobby and small business for me in the 70's) that after talking to the main lab in Vancouver, that they had a chemistry issue. At least most of my race stuff was ok but my B.C. back country travel pictures suffered the most.

I did a lot of stuff using the Cibachrome process, they are still MINT.

Re: Photo fixing

Posted: 09 Sep 2016 05:21
by Three B's Racing
Cibachrome??? My Man!! I as well dove in that wet process along with B&W. Got all my wet room items from Free Style Photo in Hollywood, Ca back in the 70's. Same here hobby and smal, but smaller business. Shot for Raceway Parks for a few years and have tons of slide and B&W's of all the big names in Top Fuel from the 70's.

Re: Photo fixing

Posted: 09 Sep 2016 06:00
by bertvorgon
That is too cool, we both must be close in age! My dad was a photographer during the war as it was a hobby of his. I ended up buying all my own dark room equipment, which I still have to this day. I got my kids interested in school, so they both took photography and re-set up my dark room in the basement. My son continued with Photo Journalism in College.

My "little" business was doing some industrial pictures for my work and some jewelry photography...that is TOUGH!

Re: Photo fixing

Posted: 09 Sep 2016 11:16
by subwoffers
A professional photo scanner will have software that scans and restores colours to 98% perfect. I have a Epson V500/700 film scanner and it restored all my pics from the 60's which look worse than that to full colour. If you have the original negatives, even better.

I can help you scan those. I have access to a V700.

Re: Photo fixing

Posted: 27 Sep 2016 06:23
by Three B's Racing
bertvorgon wrote:That is too cool, we both must be close in age! My dad was a photographer during the war as it was a hobby of his. I ended up buying all my own dark room equipment, which I still have to this day. I got my kids interested in school, so they both took photography and re-set up my dark room in the basement. My son continued with Photo Journalism in College.

My "little" business was doing some industrial pictures for my work and some jewelry photography...that is TOUGH!
I think your a bit grey'r than I 8>) as I'll be 61 in Jan. I still have all my dark room tools, why I don't know but my enlarger I use as a lamp so it still getS to stretch it's legs some. Jewelry photos macro baby!! I can see it as a reflective challenge, I have a bellows for that and F/32 which is a dream but currently a transformed D70 to infrared has been fun.