RESCUE YOUR TREASURED RAILWAY PHOTOGRAPHS
Thanks to Adobe Photoshop I've now added more photos to the collection
CREATING NEW PICTURES FROM OLD!...
To infinity and beyond!
The reason I have posted this page on the web is because a few weeks ago I received a belligerent email from a railway enthusiast, simmering with rage…'f' expletives an' all! Now I won't go into the gory details, nor give you his name, but I will explain the basis of his grievance. He was beefing about the copious use
of skyscapes and clouds in some of the photographs on this site. Okay, he might have a valid point, though he was completely wrong about the reasons, and bang out of order about my intentions. Let me explain...
I make no bones about the fact that some photos on this website have been digitally enhanced in Adobe Photoshop. Indeed, had they not been digitally 'tweaked' they would probably never have seen the light of day in the normal way. So to find myself being accused of 'downright cheating' seems totally disproportionate to my so-called 'devious crime' (his words not mine) of retouching old photographs, particularly as I have only the interests of photographers in mind.
I have since contacted my accuser (glutton for punishment, or what?) and we've settled our differences via email, so the matter is now closed. Nonetheless his accusations of 'cheating' still niggles with all the insistency of a trapped nerve. What if there are others out there who think the same way? People who think I am blatantly attempting to pull the wool over their eyes? So, with that thought in mind, I've decided to devote a whole page to the subject and set the record straight...
(Above) Adobe Photoshop is a powerful graphics programme used by designers for image manipulation. Photoshop is a veritable computer darkroom complete with a toolbox that holds all the tools you need to work on a picture. However, since I have only modest ability, I'm rather like a small boy rummaging in a toy cupboard than a cutting-edge designer working at the sharp point in a studio. I've probably clocked up more than ten thousand hours of practise over the years
(producing many disasters along the way) so I am nowhere near to exploiting its full potential. Instead I've concentrated on photo-retouching, including sharpening, improving brightness and contrast; removing spots or other unsightly blemishes. For example, I love Jim Carter's shot of 'Black 5' No 44892 leaving Manchester. The smoke effect is magnificent, the lighting superb; the composition has all the right ingrediants to lift the photo well above average. Unfortunately, Jim's original shot suffered from clumsy 'burning' and 'dodging' during the printing stage, but this has now been improved using the Adobe programme
(Right) A lot of the railway photos I work on have been machine-printed by a processing laboratory, in which case the shots might be under-over exposed (either too light or too dark) and finish up in the bottom of a drawer. Peter Sunderland's evocative photo is a 1st class record of the transition from steam and shows a 2-car Metro-Cammell dmu passing Millhouse shed on a Huddersfield-Bradford Exchange service in May 1962. It was a great pleasure working on this shot. Okay, the end result may not be 'picture perfect', but the time spent on it was worthwhile. Fact is, the Adobe Photoshop toolbar allows you to zoom-in to a single pixel, so you're bound to get up close and personal with a photographers' work!
I'm sure there are plenty of 'old timers' out there (pre-digital cameramen) who remember the old days when they' 'dabbed' away at niggling white spots on a print with a ballpoint pen, trying to remove unsightly blemishes caused by contaminated chemicals, dust and hairs on the lens - and the worst enemy of all, old age. Whatever the reason, most blemishes can be digitally removed from photographs relatively simply nowadays, though this depends on the extent of damage and the part of the photo on which the blemish occurs. For instance, a sky is easier to clean than a locomotive's valve gear. I'll start with Jim Carter's cracking shot of an EE Co Type 4 heading the northbound 'Mid-day Scot' at Warrington. Judging from the state of the original transparency it is in dire need of some personal care and attention…and deservedly so.
POLITE NOTICE: ALL PHOTOS ARE COPYRIGHTED THEREFORE REPRODUCTION IS PROHIBITED WITHOUT THE PRIOR CONSENT OF THE CURRENT COPYRIGHT OWNERS
(Above) It looks as if Jim's 35mm colour slide has been ridden over by a scramble bike! The whole upper area is covered in tyre tracks and the sky is lacking any colour tone whatsoever. There are two ways of cleaning it up - a clone stamp or paintbrush. I used the latter, first using a marquee tool to select the area of sky I wanted to work, then selecting a white tone (to match the sky) from the colour palette and gingerly painting out blemishes around the chimneys and horizon, then the whole sky. Finally I used the clone stamp to remove the spots on the buildings. (Below) So, having prepared the sky, what to do next?...
(Below) The next stage is a prickly subject because it relates to the accusations lodged against me in the email I mentioned earlier. I'm talking about copyright legislation. As you will already know, many sites add a visible watermark to a 'downloadable' photograph from the web. This consists of either a piece of text, website logo, or a © copyright notice to identify the rightful copyright owner. These translucent watermarks are commonly used to identify images on a site, not only to protect them from unauthorised use, but to ensure the images are difficult to copy by some scurrilous character who attempts to claim someone else's photo as their own. So what is the solution? Should one stamp a copyright notice all over the picture? The example below is a wee-bit over the top - translucent it's not - yet it illustrates the point perfectly...it looks awful!
(Below) So is there an alternative to using watermarks? Yes there is, only it's a painfully slow process. In the past I've tried stamping various watermarks on photos, but found their placement on top of an image a bit tricky. For starters, I didn't want to detract from the contents of the photo too much, and I didn't want to place the watermark in an area where its removal can be easily concealed. Instead, I set about adding the cautionary warning text - 'Photo copyright cameraman's name' - in a bottom corner, but because this only takes up a small proportion of the overall image area, it really wasn't enough. What was needed was something bigger and better, something that takes up a large percentage of the overall image area, and the only satisfactory solution I could think of was the sky. Eureka! It seemed the perfect choice, particularly as the photographs I'm working on were taken before graduated filters came on the market, and the skies invariably have no tones whatsoever. Is it cheating? Until I get some feedback on the subject, the jury is still out in that regard. In my scheme of things, though, not only am I stamping the pictures on this site with their very own personal watermarks, I'm enhancing them along the way...just what the doctor ordered!
Below) With the digital revolution gathering pace in recent years, the use of image editing has gone ballistic! Back in 2001, I began practising retouching my old railway photos for a bit of fun and found the experience extremely uplifting. It proves that if a batty old technophobe like me can alter a photo (I'm barely in possession of my faculties, let alone any technical wizardry) then it isn't beyond the average computer user too. With a little patience, anyone who has spent half an hour fooling around with imaging software knows how easy it is to tamper with a photo. Of course, you need to know something about traditional photography skills, along with a knowledge of light and shade, colour and perspective, though you'll doubtless learn this as you go along. I learned a few lessons while working on the Aire Valley photos at Kirkstall, Leeds, including this one (complete with its very own watermark...yes, you've guessed it - the sky!) Indeed, it doesn't matter how big or small your own photo-enhancing project is, the restoration of your old railway photographs is essential. You are preserving an important part of our history and giving future generations a glimpse of their past. The scene below is unrecognisable today…
(Above-Below) Because photo-manipulation is commonplace nowadays, faked photos are much harder to detect - and I'm not talking about air-brushing out a super model's blemishes. Who cares, anyway? The biggest concern is the way photo-manipulation is used by the news media, raising the issue of ethics in photo-journalism. It begs the question how far you can push the boundaries of digital image manipulation and still maintain an acceptable level of integrity. For example, photo manipulation creates an illusion, which, by its very nature is a deception, so while I admit to adding skies to photographs to enhance the image (and protect the copyright of a picture) it does raise concerns about the ethics of it. But then, it is vastly different than, say, changing the number of a locomotive. It smacks of foul play, and I definitely draw the line at that! What interests me more is photo-restoration and Dai Pickup's shot of 'Peak' class D198 at Retford on 18th July 1961, is a case in point. A clone stamp was used to remove the hairs around the signal and sky...a slight 'tweak' of colour correction, a bit of sharpening - and the job is done
.jpg)
The magic of the world wide web! As an educational tool you can learn so much by visiting a myriad of sites covering every subject under the sun. I do recommend visiting two fabulous sites which deal with the moral principles relating to 'Digital Photo Manipulation'.
Jerry Lodriguss's excellent Astropix.com website is one, and the enterprising About.com website another - both tackle the subject head on which makes for very interesting reading.
(Above) I recently found this lovely old photograph of Pateley Bridge station tucked inside a family photo album. The 50-odd year-old print was in a terrible state - faded with age, badly scratched and torn along the bottom edges, but rather than consign it to the bottom drawer I set about trying to restore it in Adobe Photoshop. I suppose you could say that it's lucky I found it when I did because in spite of its poor condition, it still survives today albeit in digital form. The Pateley Bridge branch diverged from the Harrogate-Ripon line at Ripley Junction and ran along the Nidd Valley to a single-platform terminus at the foot of the main street at Pateley Bridge. The track continued over the level crossing to some sidings serving Scot Gate Ash quarries, and from 1907, this gave a connection to the Nidd Valley Light Railway - a line used for conveying materials to Bradford Corporation's reservoirs, but it was also used for carrying passengers between Pateley Bridge and Lofthouse. During steam days, four trains ran in each direction daily on the Harrogate-Pateley Bridge service, with additional trains on Saturday. Most workings were performed by Wilson Worsdell's Class G5 0-6-0T No 1839, which continued to work the branch as No 67253 until closure in April 1951. No 67253 is seen on the last day of service at Pateley Bridge - goods traffic continued until 1964. Photo
MYSTERY PHOTOGRAPHS
(Above) This photo of a collision-damaged 2-4-0T No 1406 had me baffled! I'm pretty certain of its GWR origin, but not too sure who designed it - William Dean or CJ Churchward? Subsequent research in books and magazines revealed nothing, therefore I was about to publish it on the web in the hope of finding someone who could solve the mystery, but something didn't look quite right in the photo. Then it hit me! The rear of No 1406 had not suffered collision damage after all. It looks as if the horizontal and vertical lines have been geometrically distorted by the camera lens (probably a plate glass camera) and the building on the right is sloping upwards and outwards. Click here for a close-up. Nonetheless I do like this photo - the boards in the foreground lead your eye into the shot perfectly, so it was worth correcting the distortion (below) in Adobe Photoshop - and yes, I added the sky - surely, another case of photo-manipulation that should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt! The locomotive still remains a mystery, though...if anyone knows, I'd dearly love to hear from them.
(Above-Below) Is there any truth in the saying: 'One man's junk is another man's treasure?' Yes there is, particularly in today's disposable society. People carelessly dump unwanted rubbish from the past without giving any thought to its true value. This is especially the case when someone passes away. A few months ago, I was handed this shot of Maryport and Carlisle Railway 0-4-0T No R2. As you can see from the 'before' photo, the original print is in a dire state, though this is hardly surprising in view of its age. While salvaging it in Adobe Photoshop, John Edgington of the Friends of the National Railway Museum came to the rescue with details of the locomotive. Built by Neilson & Co of Glasgow in 1881 - works no 2737, the 0-4-0T had 3' 8" wheels and 14"X20" cylinders. The M & C renumbered the engine No R2 in 1897. The LMS allotted the number 111230, but this was never carried. The loco was withdrawn in 1924.
A close up of the train crew and the loco's curious dual-gauge buffer beam (standard gauge and narrow gauge) have been posted on the Cumbria Railways website. in the forlorn hope that someone may be able to identify the men in the picture. At the same time, perhaps some railway buff can shed some light on the location of the photo (we think it's Carlisle) and the dual-purpose of the buffer beam.
Sifting through the belongings of a deceased parent is one of the most depressing and intrusive things we have to do in life. At such time grief is exacerbated when no clear instructions are given on how to dispose of personal possessions, hence difficult decision have to be made on what should be thrown away and what is worth keeping. We fill black bin bags with belongings, some destined for collection by the bin men, others containing treasured goods for the charity shop, having to cope with a pervading sense of guilt that we're doing the right thing at the time. Sadly, there is no useful advice anyone can offer in these circumstances. The bereaved must do what they think is best.
On the other hand, had the deceased left clear guidelines in a will, then I'm sure he would have bequeathed his prized collection of railway memorabilia to a favourite Railway Preservation Society or similar. But then, making out a will is something everyone promises to do, but never gets round to doing. Oh, big mistake! This is particularly the case when it comes to protecting unfashionable railway memorabilia. On the face of it a box of mangy old railway books, magazines and photographs looks as if it contains nothing more than worthless junk, and the whole lot could easily end up in the bin! For crying out loud! Don't let this happen to you. Quite simply, if you want your collection to fall into the right hands, then name the person or organisation to whom you'd like it donated. It would make life easier for everyone concerned. For example, this old photo of No R2 now has a new lease of life thanks to thoughtful relatives contacting me...knowing all along that it might be important to someone.
STRETCHING THE POINT!
(Above-Below) Sometimes it is difficult to capture the moment in a photograph. Even a 26mm wide-angle lens may not be wide enough to get the photo you want. Both shots (above) are crying out to be joined together...the crossing gate (left foreground) acts as a perfect promontory to connect the images without any distortion. The signalman is returning to the box having warned the driver of a 10mph restriction due to a landslip at Kirkham Abbey on the York-Scarborough line. The full story is better told by cobbling both images together and creating the picture below. I was tempted to remove the telegraph pole sprouting from the loco, but decided against it. I did add the sky, though!
(Above-Below) Work in progress...or perphaps it will never get finished at all? The curvature of York station roof has so many angles at odds with each other that it's virtually impossible to marry both 26mm wide-angle shots into one satisfactory whole without distorting the image…
(Below) Another classic example of 'photoshopping'. It beggars belief that anyone is offended by such an obvious case of image manipulation. It clearly illustrates what can be done in today's digital age.
TO BE CONTINUED...IF YOU HAVE ANY RAILWAY PHOTOS THAT REQUIRE SAVING DROP ME A LINE.