Photographs & Graphics
Photos came from many sources over the years, and I've tried to keep track of sources in order to give fair credit but some have gotten away from me. If there are any lacking an author's credit line, please advise me and I'll add it. If there are any infractions of copyright, I will remove an offending photo on request.
In the cases of halftones scanned from old magazines, I've done my best to make them presentable, sharing credit with the Macintosh and its incredible PhotoShop program. Yet there have been a few voices raised about my possible "tampering with history," referring to the popular word, "enhancement."
It is as much my concern as anyone's not to reroute historical matter, and in preparing scans for this site, I use restraint. An example lies in a found halftone of the elusive Clinger and its clean-up, a magazine illustration of such poor quality as to be almost useless in describing the plane—blurry, full of dark blotches, a bad original photo to begin with:
By lightening it, sharpening its hard lines to some extent and dimming an intrusive background, I believe it serves its purpose of information much better than the original. This also holds true for the Call Mayfly, which was enhanced a bit:
Another example of a bad original from an old magazine and its clean-up—is it tampering with history to bring out hidden details on this rare Tipton?
Some other before-and-after samples of possible interest:
- Move aside, please
- Beech XAT-10A
- Beech UC-45F
- Bell P-63F
- Buckley LC-4
- Burgess S
- C-46 and Waco glider
- Convair Liberator Liner
- Curtiss Autoplane
- Curtiss Autoplane Cab
- Curtiss CT-1
- Douglas B-23
- Douglas Cloudster II
- Fokker F-11A
- Hamilton Helicopter
- Helio Courier
- Knight Twister
- Larson helicopter
- Martin SC-2
- Polson
- Sperry Messenger
- Taylor Chummy
- Waterman Gosling
In some cases someone beat me to it. Factory ads and brochures were notorious for airbrushed photos, some of those done by less than skilled persons. There was nothing I could do with them because they were "pre-tampered." One plane sitting at an odd angle on a tarmac with no cast shadow is at best eerie—it had been cut out and pasted on another photo.
Were all photos like those from Bill Larkins, I would have a lot less to do, but this is not to be. So, I will continue to despeckle and remove smudges and lighten up shadows for purposes of clarity, but I promise not to add any extra wings or wheels.
|
