medal ribbon photos

[punjab612]

Another family photo - my wife's Gt Uncle 121952 Doctor Baxter 252 Tunnelling Co RE pictured here as sergeant, but L/Cpl & A/Cpl when medals awarded.

An unusual combination - MM & MSM

Peter

[Muerrisch]

thank you very much: any chance of a closer look please?

[punjab612]

Couln't get a very good cose up from that phote so here is one from another

Peter

[Muerrisch]

many thanks: MSM ribbon Mk II, I think, only issued for about a year 1916-17, replaced by one with a central stripe as well as two edge stripes. Your original shot shows, I believe, the later version!

[MBrockway]

Pals,

Here's Sir Ernest Shackleton, the polar explorer, in Army uniform, showing an interesting selection of ribbons:

[Picture courtesy of Mick - Pal auchonvillerssomme]

He seems to have re-arranged them a little in this photo:

Pal Philip Wilson has researched that Shackleton held ...

• MVO (1907) upgraded to CVO (1909) when he was knighted.
• Polar Medal
• Officer of the Legion of Honour
• Commander of the Order of Danebrog of Denmark
• Polestar of Sweden
• Crown of Italy
• St Olaf of Norway
• Russian Order of St Anne
• 1st Class Chilean Order of Merit.

Phil adds ...

"The top ribbon bar contains the CVO, Polar Medal and what could well be the Legion of Honour.

If you can find a picture of him wearing medals then we ought to be able to put his foreign awards in the correct sequence as per the nine ribbons in the photo.

He received an OBE in the LG of the 3 June 1919 page 6975 for services in Russia - clearly the photo pre-dates this award."

Shackleton took part in operations as an Arctic advisor in North Russia and was appointed to the Special List.

See my other post for more info including his MIC and the LG entries:

Medals of Sir Ernest Shackleton, Help needed to interpret MIC and LG entries

Can anyone place the foreign ribbons correctly?

Cheers,

Mark

[Muerrisch]

I fear I am out of my depth here!

[Muerrisch]

I am wondering how best to illustrate an upcoming [!] article in ST!, regarding 'badges and things on SD jackets' and medal ribbons clearly crop up.

One thing I would do is refer readers to this thread, for authentic 'in wear, old film process' images.

But the quality is poor to very poor, and there is no way that I can illustrate the ribbons in a black-and-white magazine using them, given permission by the posters.

So, I have dug out my very old collection of ribbons [collected pre-1980] and taken digicam shots, and processed as B&W.

What do you think? This example is the 'exotics' which might just be seen on the breast of the ancient warrior [including Smith-Dorrien]. I will decode if there is any interest.

[Muerrisch]

and the 'post-war' issues

To come: 'officer country' includes gallantry and the odd coronation.

Other ranks includes gallantry

[Muerrisch]

the officers:

one commemorative and 3 campaigns

[Muerrisch]

and, last but not least:

3 campaigns and MSM first type

I regret that I have not the second and third MSM ribbons, nor the LS&GC

[MBrockway]

David,

The trouble is that the photographic reproduction process in use at the time of the Great War actually alters the relative tonal values of the image.

Thus we find dark blues appearing as very light in real Great War photos - e.g. the dark blue Khedive's Star ribbon in my picture of Sgt-Master-Tailor Simpson, which appears almost white.

If you take a modern image of a dark blue medal ribbon and switch it to monochrome, the resulting greyscale image will still appear dark.

I think Andrew Upton knows a lot more about the technical reasons behind these failings in the process - see his Post #18 above.

I remember it was covered in great depth by various Pals in a topic about how the patterns in kilt tartans are not faithfully reproduced in Great War photographs - e.g. the prominent yellow stripe in the Gordon tartan is completely invisible in Great War photos.

Your modern greyscale photos will not always display the medal ribbons the same way as they appear in Great War period photos, so I would be very cautious about using modern images alone.

I'll see if I can find that Topic about tartans in photos which explains it all.

Cheers,

Mark

[MBrockway]

David,

It seems it is down to using orthochromatic film and Chris (4thGordons) seems to have some expertise on the matter.

Here's his explanation:

"At the time of the First World War, most photographers used orthochromatic film. This film responds to the blue/green end of the visible light spectrum – creating problems with the rendering of colours at the opposite end (red/yellow etc). Modern panchromatic films, which were available during the war but uncommon, respond to the whole visible spectrum – giving a more "realistic" rendering of colours in grey tones.

This effect is often seen on aircraft markings (roundels) and on dress tunics (scarlet often with yellow cuffs) where the colours look "off" and is also responsible for the sometimes darker skin tones in pictures of this period and the "disappearing" yellow stripe in Gordons tartan because it is rendered dark."

[which is extracted from This Post in this Topic: Photographs taken using a WW1 era camera]

I think Chris has been researching how to mimic the effect of orthochromatic film in digital images. It may be worthwhile contacting him for advice on the illustrations for your article.^[1]

Your modern greyscale ribbon images will only be representative of Great War photos taken with the rarer panchromatic film stock.

I can see a pamphlet with side-by-side images of medal ribbons using modern colour, modern greyscale, panchromatic film, and orthochromatic film, being incredibly useful!

Cheers,

Mark

[Edit later on: ^[1]Doh! I see further on in that same Topic that you and Chris already communicated on this - and also that Chris had the same idea about side-by-side pictures (albeit of uniforms not medal ribbons) I should have gone further on before writing my Post! Still I'll leave this here anyway as it's good info for those reading about failings in medal ribbon colour reproduction]

[Andrew Upton]

I think Andrew Upton knows a lot more about the technical reasons behind these failings in the process - see his Post #18 above.

Thanks, but it's only stuff I've picked up from Chris' very detailed posts in the past

Suffice to say, simply turning a modern colour picture black and white will not give accurate results to compare original photographs taken with orthochromatic film to, eg:

http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aVHJPS9

[Muerrisch]

Yes, many thanks all, I understand the problem [in so far as I understand anything!] but the fact is that uncopyrighted good quality period photographs on ortho. are as scarce as rocking horse by-product.

At the moment, I am considering using my images, together with a cautionary note, and a reference to this thread and a similar one in the British Medals website.

Unless, that is, some kind soul has a stash of quality images taken c. 1914 1918, and willing to have them used!

[MartH]

Has anyone checked the expensive add-ons to photoshop that allows you to convert colour photographs to black and white, with specific types of films on a menu or design your own based upon its characteristics.

My brother has this add on and if somebody tells me the spec of the old film and sends a colour photo I will try, and even match up to an old black and white.

[Muerrisch]

Thank you, I did not know such existed: will enlist help 4thGordons to see about spec.

[Andrew Upton]

Has anyone checked the expensive add-ons to photoshop that allows you to convert colour photographs to black and white, with specific types of films on a menu or design your own based upon its characteristics.

Yes, Chris' already experimented with it, some of his results can be seen in post 44 of:

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...p;#entry1108579

[4thGordons]

Yes, Chris' already experimented with it, some of his results can be seen in post 44 of:

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...p;#entry1108579

Hi,

Sorry I had not been following this thread. First of all I should note I claim no particular expertise in this area just a rather longstanding interest and a bit of photographic experience.

Actually I used the standard filter system on an older version of photoshop (CS-1), I was not aware of the new feature. I have a colleague in the art dept at the college who is a whizz on photoshop and has the most recent version so I will contact him today and see if I can get access to try or what he knows about this feature.

I am not certain that my attempts to reproduce it digitally were as accurate as I would have liked but what I did was apply the appropriate colour filters to the colour image then render it in black and white and the outcome approximated that I was seeing in the pictures. I will see if I can reproduce it with medal ribbons (I only have 14/15, BWM and Vic to experiment with) and will drop an email to my colleague and get back with you.

Cheers

Chris

[MBrockway]

I love it when a plan comes together!

Mark

[Muerrisch]

I have done a bit of reading and produced this: attempt at ortho effect, DSO, Coronation 1902, MC, Zulu, Nile

[Muerrisch]

and an old soldier:

[4thGordons]

and an old soldier:

Those look pretty similar to what I achieved. Although on the BWM the light/dark looks a little off

I have not yet heard back from my colleague however, using colour manipulation within photoshop and basing the adjustments on the BWM where the centre gets dark and the outside light I produced these:

Old SOldier

This was done by desaturating Red and Yellow in the colour image and fully saturating Green and Blue then converting the whole thing to black and white. This is a bit more like the original posted but still not quite

Chris

[Muerrisch]

Thank you. I imagine that there was a bit of variation introduced at the developing and printing stage, too.

What we really need is a close up of pip squeak and wilfred being worn in 1920!

[4thGordons]

Thank you. I imagine that there was a bit of variation introduced at the developing and printing stage, too.

What we really need is a close up of pip squeak and wilfred being worn in 1920!

Yes.... although I believe that panchromatic films became much more available around then too which might scupper the plans!

Still waiting on my colleague

Chris

[MartH]

My brother has 2 Plug-ins for Photoshop LE, Nik Software: Silver FX (for B&W) & Color FX, he says he now would bye the Viveza color product too. The Silver FX is the product which impressed me, he demonstrated it on 4 of Skpiman's outstanding CC album to show how he could just change B&W from that period, this was prior to me reading this thread.

He said that he was currently looking at a freebie called GIMP download from here Click Click, he does not know the detailed functionality yet but he says its worth investigating.