Op Fri, 17 Mar 2006 09:06:00 +0100 schreef mike wilson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
One other thing I notice: Old prints (say, beginning 20th century) often
do not have a full tonal range: There's black and dark grey, and a lot
of
white. The middle to light grays seem to have bleached away. I think
this
is an ageing effect. You could mimick that to make photo's look 'old and
worn'.
Not only an ageing effect. It was quite some time after the development
of easy access photography before film was developed that reacted
equally to all wavelengths of light. Part of the pleasure of
interpreting old photographs is working out what is missing.
The prints I was thinking of are of ships on a sunny day on a river, and
all the blue (sky, river, say 90% of the frame :o) is almost white. I
think that makes sense, or should it be just the other way around?
It is a pity, though. The ship belonged to my wife's grantparents, and her
family would appreciate 'better' copies. The prints are tiny. I tried to
scan, clean up and enlarge them, but I think there's just too little
information to work with... Even blowing up 'as-is' did not yield useable
results.
Along these lines: we strongly believe a dutch museum has 'glass
negatives' of the ship. Would that be worth pursueing? Can these negatives
still be printed (or scanned)? What size would a 'glass negative' have? As
they probably aren't "easy access photography": would these negatives have
the same tonality problems?
Thanks in advance,
--
Regards, Lucas
