Photo editing (was: Jagdfliegerverbände 9 / I)

[George Hopp]

"Franek, what you suggest is forgery of historical documents and must be judged accordingly"

Actually, restoring photos to their orginal colours is not "forgery." After 60 years you can get some strange chemical interactions; and by restoring, if possible, the original colours -- or something close to them -- the photo becomes a more valuable resource for the reader. Yes, you need backgrounds or foregrounds to aid the reconstruction; but, it can be done. And, if you are able to, I'm all for it.

[Franek Grabowski]

Well, I see a serious lack of knowledge and even ignorance concerning the matter. You must be awared that NO colour film faithfully reproduces colours. Therefore at the start we receive false colours. Then, during processing we may receive further errors, then if we are making prints, colour balance is set up individually, also to correct colours! Then during scanning the photo is again adjusted in order to keep authentic colours. Then again during DTP the photo is again adjusted to prepare it for printing process. Finally, printers give us a printed photo which is again slightly different to what they have received. Summarising, every photo is a forgery. The same applies to B&W photography, where several tricks .
Of course anyone may scan photos from a book and correct them according to his taste. The problem is however that the original photo/scan does contain much more information than the one in print. Therefore much better effects may be achieved when working with the former and not the latter.

[Ruy Horta]

Once you restore photos you are dealing with interpretations and the subjective choice of the one restoring the photo, whatever his qualified background. I'd rather get the unrestored photo and apply my own interpretation using basically the same tools.

Of course you can enjoy restored photos, I know I do, but it is important that their captions include the fact that they have been "enhanced".

As long as the material is closest to the original print you know you have more or less the same "raw material" subject to enhancement.

But I can certainly understand both sides of the argument.

[Franek Grabowski]

Ruy
Just a question, are you awared that virtually every photo print you get from photolabs is enhanced?

[jug-junkie]

Gentlemen, just a thought from one who is extremely interested in accuracy. I side with both parties to varing extents and for different reasons. On behalf of the "pro-original" group I fully understand not wanting to alter the images and thereby forever losing the true originality of the image. However, on behalf of the "pro-correcting" group i have to agree with the basic idea that by correcting the hue's you will come closer to reality. As one who tries his best to copy the truth, i cannot see how correcting the colour to closer represent the true, can be forging. We are after all only talking about correcting the representitive image and not the original photograph! So where is the harm in trying to show the image closer to what it would have been (thereby assisting the researcher).

Just my personal thoughts.

Geoff Pereira

[John P Cooper]

As a consumer I would like the best of both worlds - that is both the primary and the corrected with some comments in the bak of the book about the process.

Regards~