[MOPO] FW: [MOPO] Questions: Hand-tinting of early lobbies...

[Cindy Nemeth-Johannes]

Here’s what my husband said about tinting.   Cindy N-J   From: Jay Nemeth-Johannes [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 11, 2006 11:34 PM To: 'Cindy Nemeth-Johannes'; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [MOPO] Questions: Hand-tinting of early lobbies...   Hi Cindy and Ron,   Feel free to forward this to MOPO.   I grew up in a portrait photography studio in the '50s and '60s.  Grandparents started the business in 1902 and my parents carried it forward until 1967.  The studio specialized in "Artistic Photography" in Milwaukee.  What this meant was that we hand colored portraits and sometimes added custom background material, like trees, flowers, animals, whatever.  Here's the scoop.   Our studio had a unique process of coloring black&white photographs.  Every other example I have seen, uses a photograph that has had a sepia-tone dye applied.  From either starting point, the portrait is given to a colorist.  The process involved applying standard artist's oil paint to the photograph.  The oil paint was applied with cotton swabs in very thin layers.  This allowed tinting of the area while still allowing the detail of the photograph to show through.  Our colorists were quite skilled at creating custom cotton swabs in very small sizes for detail areas, and it generally took 4-6 hours to properly color an 8x10" photograph.   I doubt that this could be made practical on a commercial level, even in 191x and even though the colored areas were limited.  I would think it would still take the better part of an hour to accomplish properly.   Anyway, the letter made me curious, so I pulled out a lobby card set I own of "Why Smith Left Home".  This is a forgotten 1919 silent film.  I found that all of the cards were tinted in limited areas, except for the title card.  Instead, the title card has a sparkle powder applied with glue to some of the border areas.  Perhaps something similar has worn off over time on the subject card as the glue on this card is very fragile.  I bought these cards from Bruce H about 10 years ago and the cards were pristine.  They had obviously never been shown, and Bruce said at the time that he had personally broken the seal of the envelope to photograph them for the catalog (this was before his internet auctions).  Therefore, I believe that for this set, no action had been taken by a theater owner and this was the way they were shipped from the studio.   The cards are printed on cardboard with the front side smooth and semi-glossy.  The back side is the same.  The card is printed in sepiatone and appears to have been mastered from a sepiatone photograph as the whites also have that telltale sepia wash.  The printing is very high quality, not halftone, but likely roto-gravure.  The interesting part would be the sepia.  I am currently looking at an individual card titled "Hubbie, I am going to be the best little housekeeper a man ever had"  The photo is definitely tinted, but on close inspection there are only 2 colors. There is a pale green on the book cover, the rug, and a wood box on the table.  There is also a pink tint in a lot of the picture, including both characters' cheeks, individual flowers in a clump, a tablecloth and some gas light fixtures in the background.  Now if the cards were individually hand colored, I would expect to see some variation in thickness and some areas where the colorist would have slight overruns (coloring outside the lines).  These can be corrected, but would leave traces on the original.  I did not see any of this.  First, the color overlay is absolutely smooth when viewed under high light on edge.  This would say that it was applied in a very even coat, probably from a press.  Second, there is no overshoots whatsoever.  However, under very careful examination, I can see that the green layer has a very slight registration error, I.e. the green is (extremely) slightly offset to the right on all areas it has been applied.  That says to me that it was applied through a printing process in production quantities.   If I were doing this, and it was 1919, I would create the sepiatone photograph and then create 2 clear nitrate based overlays.  I would then make plates from the nitrate overlays and print with a transparent dye ink.  Looking at the results, that's what I think was done.  Obviously, I can't speak for the cards being described, but this is the sort of thing I would look for, and the process I would use.  Hope that's of some help.   Jay Nemeth-Johannes  Smart Sensor Systems  720 SW 14th Street Loveland, Colorado 80537 (970) 663-0006  (Office) (970) 290-9797 (Cell) www.SmartSensorSystems.com     From: Cindy Nemeth-Johannes [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, August 11, 2006 6:48 PM To: 'Jay Nemeth-Johannes' Subject: FW: [MOPO] Questions: Hand-tinting of early lobbies... I’m not asking you to answer the movie poster collector stuff, but please let him know about the hand-tinting process – I suspect that the owner of the theater that exhibited this was either a fine portrait photographer or had one he/she was close enough to have this done at.   Dave Rosen [EMAIL PROTECTED]   From: MoPo List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Rosen Sent: Friday, August 11, 2006 6:13 PM To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Subject: [MOPO] Questions: Hand-tinting of early lobbies...   Hi, all:   I have a query that some of you may be able to help me with. This isn't my area of specialty, in fact I only own two silent era cards, but still I've wondered...   The two cards I have are the title card and a scene card for the 1922 film The Man From Glengarry. Oddly, the scene card is tinted, the title card is not.   Question #1: How do I tell if a card was in fact hand-tinted? The tinted card doesn't look like it's had water colors applied but I may be wrong. Are there tell-tale signs? Could the colors in fact be printed on?   Question #2: How common would it be for a scene card to be tinted and the title card left b&w? Seems if you were going to tint any card in the set it would be the title card.   Any enlightenment would be appreciated, as always.   Thanks, Dave Posteropolis www.posteropolis.com   Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.