Making Period Looking Photos

[davep]

I was working with Eric, helping him get their unit's photos up on the CHG website. I asked for his "secret sauce" for getting those great period pictures you see on the 10SS website. Also Andrew(panda) I believe uses the same technique.


The problem I notice with modern digital cameras is not only are the lenses far superior to what they had back in the 40's, but the light collection of the sensors allows for an incredibly deep depth of field under almost any lighting conditions, which was pretty hard to do in the 40's. I find that photos taken from crappy cell phone cameras are easier to make period from the start, but you can do it with any photo really. - Eric


For starts, Eric has a pretty extensive collection of WW2 Photographs, as his grandfather fought in France. The first step to his process is, he scans the back side of these photos, to create a portfolio of "photo templates". The second step is to duplicate the photo development process used during that time. This is a process in which only the "black shades" appear. This is because the white shade, of the photo paper, in this case the scanned templates become the sources of any "white" that will appear in your result. This is why the border "white" is the same shade throughout the entire photograph.

If you don't have any 1940 photographs, you have two choices.
1. Go on ebay and purchase some
2. Take a scree print of some of Eric's, and photoshop off the image. Thereby creating your own template. This in fact is what I did to create though photograph background images sitting behind each unit's photo slideshow on the CHG website.


Obviously though, in photoshop, you will be bringing over the orginal "full whites" of your photo. Accordingly in order to have the "whites" of the photo paper bleach through, you must use "Linear Burn Mode". This allows the whites of the photo template to take president through. I myself am not familiar with this too, i.e. how to apply it and adjust it use in the process. So I will be doing some experimentation. Also the "Linear Burn Mode" affects the "black shades" as well taking on some of the paper's tones, causing your "black" shades to skew green, brown, or some other color characteristics of the photograph's paper.

But before using the Linear Burn Mode, on your original digit photo, Eric uses this three filters

1. Fog
2. Film Grain - this is used only in certain cases and limited use
3. Film Scratch - obtained from a roll of blank 35mm film, which has layer been scanned

Next he uses a "depth of range" adjustment to blurr up the background image.

The end result is something so perfect, it looks 65 years old
picasaweb.google.com/Oziron/FrundsbergHighlights#slideshow

[2ndarmoredpal]

I don't have Photoshop and have been using Paint Shop Pro since I started the hobby. I've converted a lot of digital photos with it. The most noticeable thing that I had to change was what Dave was saying, the Depth Of Field. With handy digital cameras, the lenses are so good that everything comes in pretty clear. I actually go in a with a "softener" tool in Paint Shop and soften up the backgrounds. Doing a general soften can sometimes do it, but you also want to keep your subjects in better focus, so I had to actually brush in softness to the background and stuff in the extreme foreground.

Also, going with the Grayscale function never worked for me. I always found it to harsh of a gray tone. I use a desaturated colorizing function that gives it a soft touch of amber or a slight hint of blue depending on the effect I am going for.

I am still practicing of applying photos to realistic photo borders like Eric has done for his.

Another thing to consider is the quality of the shooter and developing that you want to recreate. If you're trying to repro photos that were taking by an amateur in the field with a camera he had found or was sent from home, then the graininess, focal quality, and shadows/contrast are going to be less consistent and details won't be as clear. But, if you're reproing photos taken by a combat photographer or a war correspondent, those photos are quite clear, the contrasts are real good, and the image quality is superb... so don't get too carried away with adding scratches and grain to photos you're going to place a "Signal Corps" stamp on the bottom.

Nowadays, I tend to shoot real film out of an old camera, so I haven't had as much photo editing to do in the past year.

[davep]

This is a nice tutorial on how to antique a current day photo. Among the tips, is how to make the color become sepia black and white, properly. Often the canned tool gives you one standard affect. By using the tools you can dial in the look you want. Also is a nice tip on how to make the background image blur, while keeping the foreground image clear. Current day cameras have such a great depth of range, everything is in focus.




Here is instructions on how to make a "scratch mark" filter layer. This allows you to make a scratch layer which you put over our period photograph, and by adjusting the opacity to something in the 40% you add scratch marks. This explanation allows you to make your own various scratch layers in order to tailor amount and style of the scratches
www.fairytaled.serenita-designs.org/Tutorials/text_scratch/

Here is the result ...