Pink Spitfire question

without the grey hue:
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My judgment of the image in post 1 is that it has been crudely photo-shopped with new sky. There is no vertical tonal variation in the sky and the tops of the trees are fuzzy and lack the level of definition we see in the building.

That and you can see the traces of the colour halftone in the lower half of the picture where it’s been scanned from a book. My guess was that it was scanned from a book with a caption overprinted on the top half which was photo-shopped out by someone wearing boxing gloves.

An un-colour corrected original without the halftone is out on the web:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]227815[/ATTACH]

Someone I know that worked for Kodak did some analysis.

“Cutting a very long story short, when I was still with the ‘Big Yellow Box’, I analysed these images, and found that the half-tone reproductions of the B&W pics were a little lacking in their dot-percentage range, resulting in a slight loss of contrast across the full range of tones. A similar exercise with the colour pics showed that they were probably from transparencies, and that, although possibly overexposed, and showing evidence of slight fading, the colour reproduction had not suffered too much. In other words, the colour shots were reasonably close to the actual colour tones. This was confirmed by a then neighbour, who had served as an armourer on the Squadron, at the time the pics were taken at Melsbroek, Belgium.”

My judgment of the image in post 1 is that it has been crudely photo-shopped with new sky. There is no vertical tonal variation in the sky and the tops of the trees are fuzzy and lack the level of definition we see in the building.

Just a little, but, in fairness, the owners would not have been aware of the existence of the sample, and they did tell Humbrol that they wanted something a bit strong.
Edgar

Interesting stuff Edgar,

So the pink used on PL965 a few years ago was a bit bright then?

Bruce

The original print is available to view in the RAF Museum library, and that reproduction, above, is as close as I’ve seen. Some reprints have enhanced the pink (actually an off-white, of which there’s an original sample in an envelope, in a folder, in a file, in the National Archives) so much that the cyclist looks like a fugitive from the Indian sub-continent. The sample pink is so pale that it needs to be laid on a sheet of white paper, to judge the hue.

At risk of sounding like an expert, which I’m not, I think Mark12 is right about it being Agfa film stock. The “allied” equivalent would be Kodachrome, and the red roundel (and possibly the pink?)would be much more obvious on that. From those I’ve seen online, Agfa stock was much darker, more greens in it, whereas Kodachrome was noted for its reds.

I guess you’ve probably seen a lot more unrestored period Kodachromes than I have, Mark12?

Adrian

This shot was taken be 16 Sqn pilot Michael Horsfall on colour positive stock at Melsbroek airfield in October 1944.

You can reasonably expect that in the intervening period when the originals were copied, cleaned and prepared for publication in the late 1970’s there will have been a degree of enhancement. All pre photoshop.

My guess would be that the film was German Agfa stock acquired when the squadron moved in to Belgium and finally Holland.

Is that a real colour photo? If it’s post-coloured, either at the time or more recently, then the colours can’t be relied on anyway. Mind you, I’ll admit even tonally it looks too bright for PR Blue.

16 Squadron – Fr.IX. There was a camera fitted in the usual position in the fuselage.

The recon MkIX – the FR IX?