Re: [Phys-l] [tap-l] amazing instruments

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

There is a Virtual Dub filter which adds age to movies.  You can have spots,
grain... and can turn a modern movie into a well aged looking film.  I think
it is appropriately called "Old Movie".  But with a bit of work you can
reverse this process.

But sometimes you want to see what the original looked like.  I took an
absolutely stunning photo of my grandmother in a large hat and fixed it.
Part of the rosette on the hat was missing, but I had a small snap of this
picture before it had deteriorated more.  So I had to match the rosette from
the small picture and put it into the big scan.  Then I had to draw in part
of the shoulder and take out a huge scratch through the neck.  The final
result is beautiful on my wall.  But when doing it I discovered the original
fakery.  The photographer had repainted the end of grandmother's nose and
her lips.  She had a nice size nose, and perfect rose bud lips.  She sent
the picture back 5 times until it was right according to my dad.  So even
old photos can lie, and nosejobs are not new.  I like my fakery and think it
is faithful to the original.

Sometimes photos are so bad they have to be almost completely redone.  It
depends on the image and what you want it for.  It is now possible to remove
motion blurring, fix bad focus, bring out "invisible" details...  I even
restored the hand painted color and detail to a small turn of the century
badly deteriorated image.  Colorization can be done intelligently and may
have a place in education.

Sometimes a picture is good, but has a defect such as a light leak which
completely obscures part of the picture.  Or you have to straighten a
picture to make it stronger which then means you will have some blank areas
in corners.  Photoshopping in plausible details can make the picture much
better, while still being true to the original.  I really don't know where
the line is between real fakery, or revealing what is there.  Certainly
removing people from groups is fakery.  Michelangelos's paintings were too
nude for some tastes, so another painter came along and added "panteloons".
But the images of people in Hell were kept natural!  Nowadays we find this
shocking, the repainting that is.

In reality your mind does things exactly like this.  When you recall
something you edit it and then put it back into long term memory.  And
impressive things get embroidered.  So I was told about the "BBC Spaghetti
hoax" but the person had forgotten the details.  She said it showed native
dances before the harvest and implied it was in a primitive society rather
than a rather staid Swiss village, but she remembered picking the spaghetti
from the trees.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> On 2011, Mar 11, , at 08:27, John Clement wrote:
>
> > I would be a little careful in judging pictures by imperfections.  We
> now
> > have technology to make old photos nearly defect free, and to make new
> > photos look like old ones.
>
>
> Right,  and I use PhotoShop often.  However, most of the photo' is as
> original.  If the photo' is totally done over then it's no longer an old
> photo', nicht wahr?
>
>
>
> bc wonders about the olding app.