Why do these photos look like this?

[Tim]

I was interested to see these wonderful photos documenting The Great Depression, from the Library of Congress:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...epression.html

I would like to ask the image processing experts here on the CinC forum just how would you turn a modern day photograph into one looking like those?

For instance, the 'Homesteader and his children eating barbeque at the New Mexico Fair'. What is the key to the way that image appears?

[jiro]

I was interested to see these wonderful photos documenting The Great Depression, from the Library of Congress:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...epression.html

I would like to ask the image processing experts here on the CinC forum just how would you turn a modern day photograph into one looking like those?

For instance, the 'Homesteader and his children eating barbeque at the New Mexico Fair'. What is the key to the way that image appears?

It will always depend on what type of film was used during the time the image was taken and how it was processed in the darkroom, Tim. There are a lot of new editing softwares available right now that can mimic the old film effects that you see on your link. One of them is AlienSkin Exposure 3. I think they have about 500 variations of effects that you can do from Ektachrome to Holga's. Another is onOne software, Niksoftware Color Efex Pro 3, and many more. It's easy if you have one of these softwares with you. Hope this helps, Tim.

[Wirefox]

Hi Tim
For that particular image I would use a film conversion to Provia and then a technicolor script to get that fantastic old colour film effect. I would then play with the levels, curves and contrast to get the 'feel'. There is also a Lomo plugin that you can play around with the settings to get these effects. I think the lomo setting is call old film I would have to check.

I use GIMP so that is open source and free and so are the colour film and technicolor scripts and they work a treat.

The images in your link are absolutely fascinating. There has been a series on one of the satellite channels called World War II in Colour. There is some amazing footage in there. Hats off to the archivists

[Tim]

Thanks, guys, for those comments. They are very useful. I'd also like to hear people's opinions on their thoughts about the image differences from 'normal': in other words, what you instinctively feel about the qualities of those photos, and the things you'd do to achieve it. For instance, is the color balance slightly off? Is the saturation set at a particular point? Is there a certain fuzziness, or grain, or noise of some type? I realise that there are a variety of ready-made filters that will do this - thanks for letting me know about some of them - but I'd also like an understanding of the basics of what I'm looking at myself.