medal ribbon photos

[Muerrisch]

Thank you: this could run and run.

I have a Golden Wedding thrash to fund soon, so no megabucks for photo-ware at the moment!

[MBrockway]

Thank you: this could run and run.

I have a Golden Wedding thrash to fund soon, so no megabucks for photo-ware at the moment!

I know THAT feeling!

The GIMP graphics software is free, but perhaps requires a bit more tech savvy to install than most typical software today.

It has a good reputation and seems to have positive write-ups.

I've downloaded it myself, but I won't have the couple of hours computer time required to set it up until next week. That may be too late for your publishing deadline

I'll let you know how easy it was and whether it looks simple to use, and more importantly whether it has features that'll allow you to mimic these orthochromatic films.

Cheers,

Mark

[Muerrisch]

Many thanks indeed: no Publishing deadline: ST! editor keeps me on a loose rein, and usually has a 2 or 3 issue sequence more-or-less lined up.

[high wood]

Military Medal and bar, 1914 Star. 7593 Pte William E Smith, 2nd and 18th battalions King's Royal Rifle Corps; later WO class 2.

[Muerrisch]

Thank you, a very clear example.

[MBrockway]

The GIMP graphics software is free, but perhaps requires a bit more tech savvy to install than most typical software today.

It has a good reputation and seems to have positive write-ups.

I've downloaded it myself, but I won't have the couple of hours computer time required to set it up until next week. That may be too late for your publishing deadline

I'll let you know how easy it was and whether it looks simple to use, and more importantly whether it has features that'll allow you to mimic these orthochromatic films.

Cheers,

Mark

David & Pals,

I've loaded the GIMP Graphic software. It was reasonably straightforward to get going and I'm starting to get used to "driving" it! I'm used to PaintShopPro so I'm having to find my way around from scratch with the usual false starts. Mostly it's pretty intuitive though ... and it's totally FREE!

I managed to find a GIMP Add-On which claims to mimic the orthochromatic film and I've been experimenting on-and-off. It seems to do what we need but it also darkens the images massively. I rather suspect it works by simply applying filters to the different ranges of the colour spectrum in the same way Chris has been doing in Photoshop - it might be just as easy to save the filter settings as a stored effect.

I'll try to post some samples soon, but I'm away from my main computer most of this week.

Cheers,

Mark

[tjec]

Heres one of my Great Uncle taken in Egypt 1941/42, wrong era but WW1 ribbons show up well in black & white photo.

Regards,

Norman

[Muerrisch]

Thank you: that may be panchromatic film, which renders the reds and yellows better.

[4thGordons]

Thank you: that may be panchromatic film, which renders the reds and yellows better.

I should say that it is - looking at the BWM especially and the way the orange is rendered.

Chris

[tjec]

Hi Grumpy and 4th Gordons,

Oops, not being very knowledgeable on black & white film types, I checked Wikepedia for panchromatic film and understand a little more about what you mean. I think I will stick to digital.

The more you learn, the more you have to learn!

Cheers,

Norman

[Muerrisch]

I only learned about orthochromatic and panchromatic from 4thGordons and others quite recently ...... essentially, the old ortho film up to c. 1925 was very sensitive to blue and green and rendered them quite brightly, whereas the red/yellow end was darkened, sometimes to near black.

Panchromatic film sorted that.

Hope I learned my basic photo. facts!

[MBrockway]

David / Chris and All!

Here are some samples from my experiments with the free GIMP Graphics package.

1. Modern colour image of a BWM and VM pair (cropped down to a strip of the ribbons) ...

2. #1 switched to monochrome/greyscale (which mimics the later Panchromatic Film) ...

3. #1 with Orthochromatic Film effect applied ...

4. #3 but then increased Brightness added ...

Now here's Andrew's earlier comparison showing a pair stacked as ...

• Original photograph on Orthochromatic Film (~ #3 above)
• Modern Colour pic (~ #1)
• Mock-up of Panchromatic Film (~ #2)

... with a montage of my GIMP versions of the same ...

-

What do we think? It gets the inversion of darks and lights quite well, but it doesn't seem light enough even when I boosted the Brightness.

We may have more success working out our own filter values in GIMP along the lines Chris has been trialling in Photoshop. The settings can then be stored as a "Pre-set" for repeated future use. The advantage of the GIMP software is that it is free!

Cheers,

Mark

[Muerrisch]

very many thanks for the work you have done and are doing. I will attempt to append a photo of a real group. The background is scarlet tunic. Taken after war, the question is, can we deduce ortho. or pan? Until this is posted, I shall not have a clue! Fingers crossed.

By the way, I have downloaded Gimp and am struggling with it, being inept.

not much doubt, ortho!

[4thGordons]

Mark

I think that is very good.

I will download it tonight an play with it when I get time!

I think the lightness on Andrews is an exaggeration - perhaps with over strong light or flash being reflected from the silk ribbon accentuating the lightness.

I think the simulation of the ortho. colour representation looks pretty close - will download and play!

Chris

[Muerrisch]

this can only get better!

[4thGordons]

this can only get better!

Ok well on lunch and using only the low res colour pics nicked from this and the earlier thread.

I downloaded the orthographic filter for Gimp and as far as I can see it really does just automate the application of colour filters - so it does darken the image considerably but I adjusted using curves (more flexible than lightness/contrast and you can save the value) and got these

a rendering of the scarlet doublet and Gordons Kilt

a rendering of the medal ribbons

Looks promising! I'll try tonight with proper photo files... good that I can now do this conversion with just two clicks!

Chris

[MBrockway]

Rock and roll!

Chris,

Once you've cracked the filter settings, let us know.

I assume you found & installed the "Black and White" GIMP plug-in written by "EG" who is Martin Egger in Bern, Switzerland?

Incidentally, I forgot to say above that my sample images have been compressed massively (and therefore lost resolution) because of the way I turned them into small .jpgs. I wasn't worried about that as I know that can be fixed later - I was simply looking at the tonal fidelity of the orthochromatic simulation effect.

David,

Yes, I'm afraid GIMP is powerful, but takes a bit of finding your way about and it's a bit strange till you get your bearings!

When setting it up a little bit of knowledge of the under-the-bonnet bits of the computer certainly came in handy.

Anything specific that it's stuck on?

Cheers,

Mark

[4thGordons]

Rock and roll!

Chris,

Once you've cracked the filter settings, let us know.

I assume you found & installed the "Black and White" GIMP plug-in written by "EG" who is Martin Egger in Bern, Switzerland?

Incidentally, I forgot to say above that my sample images have been compressed massively (and therefore lost resolution) because of the way I turned them into small .jpgs. I wasn't worried about that as I know that can be fixed later - I was simply looking at the tonal fidelity of the orthochromatic simulation effect.

Yes that's the one.... I couldn't get it to install on my vista machine at home but worked fine at work with XP so I will take some file in tomorrow to play with!

Chris

[Muerrisch]

DCM, SA pair, LS&GC.

Tunic is scarlet, sash is crimson

please advis download ortho filter GIMP.

[MartH]

I too have been working on this after a lesson from my Brother who originally suggested the GIMP package.

I've even had a 2 hour demo from him on how to use the package on medal ribbons. Then I got ill again, grrr, anyway back off the antibiotics now, but still more hospital checks Friday.

One thing to be aware of with lots of processing of images is that you need to work and store them a TIFF files during the process because it is a lossless format, and not JPG's as they are not a lossless format and will deteriorate with multiple saves and retrieves. Though modern JPGs are a lot better than the earlier compression algorithms. You would save the final converted image as a JPG.

One thing GIMP can not reproduce is the impact of graining on the modern photos as per the orginals, but I don't think that is important.

[MBrockway]

please advis download ortho filter GIMP.

David,

The Plug-in is here: http://registry.gimp.org/files/Eg-BlackandWhite.scm

You need to Download this file and then save it into the following folder in the GIMP folder tree: C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\share\gimp\2.0\scripts

[Edit: this bit above now coloured green is not very clear! Use the method described a few posts down instead! The rest of this post is fine though]

(Assuming you've already installed GIMP of course!)

Then start up GIMP and it should detect the new Plug-in on its own in behind the scenes.

To use it, start GIMP and open a suitable picture.

Click on Filters in the menubar. A Menu should appear.

Near the bottom should be a entry "Eg" with an > to its right. Press the > and a sub-menu will appear with a single entry "Black and White". Click on this.

A new window should now appear with "Script-Fu: Black and White" in the dark blue title bar at its top edge. No idea what Script-Fu means!

Close to the top of this small window it says "Which B&W conversion:" with a drop-down list box next to it, which probably says "B&W (No Filter)". Click the arrow button at the rhs of this and more options will appear. You need to select "B&W (Orthochromatic film)".

Now just press "OK" and your picture should turn orthochromatic!

If it doesn't, then check that it hasn't added a new orthochromatic layer to the picture but is still displaying the original colour layer - do this by checking the GIMP Layer window that is probably floating about somewhere else.

If it still doesn't seem to have worked, post the details here and we'll see if we can fathom it out!

As I said, GIMP is a powerful tool but does take a bit of getting used to!

Cheers,

Mark

[Muerrisch]

Many thanks to both contributors above ...... will do the deed probably this evening.

Let you know how [if] I get on.

[MBrockway]

Oops! "Downloading" the Plug-in isn't perhaps as obvious as I'd thought. It's a few days since I wrestled with this myself!

Instead of the link above, follow this link instead: http://registry.gimp.org/node/111

This should take you to the GIMP website page for the Black&White Plug-in.

Near the middle of the screen there should be a Heading called "Attachment".

Under this there should be two files:

• Eg-BlackandWhite.scm
• Example_SW.jpg

Move the mouse over the first of these and click the right mouse button. In the menu that now appears, select Save Target As .... A window will appear with "Save As" in its title bar.

You need to browse to this exact location in the GIMP folder tree:

C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\share\gimp\2.0\scripts

... and then save the file there with the filename unchanged.

Now do the same for the second file, except this one needs to be stored in this location:

C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\share\gimp\2.0\scripts\images

This second file is merely a sample file showing the results of all the different filters in the BlackandWhite Plug-in. It is not essential to the correct functioning of the Plug-in and is probably only used in the Help system. You can probably skip it if you're not bothered.

Hope this makes more sense now!!!

Cheers,

Mark

PS These instructions are based on Internet Explorer. You may need to adapt them if you're using another web browser.

[Muerrisch]

hey! it works!!!!

Many thanks.

at first blush it seems a bit harsh.

I will try to post a sample using a set of felt squares as colour models.

colours are left to right black red orange yellow green dark blue, light blue, lilac

[4thGordons]

hey! it works!!!!

Many thanks.

at first blush it seems a bit harsh.

I will try to post a sample using a set of felt squares as colour models.

colours are left to right black red orange yellow green dark blue, light blue, lilac

Nice! any chance of the original colour strip/picture as a comparison? I think this will be useful. I am going to try and photograph some period items (uniforms weapons etc) this weekend for comparisons.

Chris

OK so here is a doublet (scarlet with yellow facings) - white leather equipment, a black mannequin, and BWM and Vic. in both colour and ortho. I added a little grain but did not lighten this.