Why would a Purple car photograph Green in 1957 ???

Alright guys,...

Are there any photography experts that can help me out with this ? I have a couple pictures of the Hank Negley Roadster taken in the late 50's,.. The car was never green,.. In fact it was a really deep purple color they mixed up special.

But I have the two color pictures and this car looks green..... Any ideas how this could have happened ? Is there any way to make the car deep purple again ?,.... looking for some ideas here guys, Thanks

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I"m no expert but the I think the chemicals used to make color photos in those days can degrade over time and you lose the true colors.

 

Certain types of old films/papers fade certain ways. Some more prone to fading than others.

Easily fixed with photoshop.

 

looks good in green.

 

I think Uncletchet and Bigdaddylove pretty well nailed it. I've got some old photos from about the same time period that the color isn't right on anymore.

I wouldn't let anyone lay a finger on the original prints but would probably get one of the photoshop experts to make you some prints with the correct color.

 

Something like this? This is just a quickie. One of the real photoshop guys could probably take the time to do better.

 

Saxman, I think you went too far on the contrast...

 

The car seems to have slipped into the great Hot Rod abyss,... There is one rumor out there that Louie Shell of the Gophers might have bought it, And I might have a slim lead on it, but nothing solid..

I am hoping to talk with a couple guys from the Gear Grinders that might know something,.... I am hot on the trail boys !,... If by some slim chance I can track down what happened to it,... you guys will be the second to know,.. Right after Paula.

 

It's been a while, but there maybe an auto-correct function in PS. Also, I think you adjust the gamma as well as red/blue/green for color correction.

When ever scanning a photo, save the photo as a tiff file (consider this the negative) which gets saved and is never messed with. Then make a copy of the tiff and make adjustments then save as a jpeg.

 

I did a quickie PS adjustment for color, sharpness and density on your image. Given the neutrality of the background colors and the correct green in the gr*** the image looks pretty normal, neutral and unfaded to me and, without offense, I'd almost believe this was a pix of another similar but non-purple car. I'm no expert, but when one layer in the color medium is bad, or crosses the others, it affects all the color layers and the damage can not be easily corrected, if at all.

So... is there a possibly that the angle and brightness of the sun somehow caused an unusual reflection back thru any transparent layers in the paint and the green tint could be due to primers or other base coats causing the color change effect? Gary

 

"that sounds logical"

 

Sounds about right,... and thanks for the response. According to the story, Hank spent a long time on trying to mix up the perfect shade of purple.... Maybe it has something to do with exactly what your describing.... From what I understand, he was surprised to see the pictures came out green.

 

Was the original pix on color film, or slide? If slide, Kodachrome or Ektachrome? Each type of film was a little different in how they reproduced color.

Also the human eye adjusts colors -- like headlights at night look white until one of those HID-equipped cars comes by, then others look yellow.

Was the paint metalflake? Could be doing one of those "color-changing" things like the new paints.

Very interesting problem.

I opened it in PS and bumped the "Hue" up 30 points and it turned purple. Messed with"color balance" a little

 

O K Film buffs here goes . Ecktachrome and Ecktacolor , both films manufactured by Eastman Kodak had a predominance to respond to both Blue and Yellow , primary colors . In several cases , the basic layers would desolve chemicly over time and as a result will show these "primary colors" as a result . Kodaks Kodachrome , saddly which is no longer avalible was prone to Reds, Oranges and Black . Meanwhile , if one were shooting Agfa films , they had a Brown pre disposition . scrubba

 

I'm no film buff at all and I know nothing about pictures, but when I was a child (about 30 years ago), I used to stay at my Aunt and Uncle's each summer for a week or two. They ran a photography business and still do. To develop the pictures back then, they used a dark room and dunked the prints into tubs of chemicals, I presume that each tub added different chemicals to make the colors. When a print didn’t turn out right, they would let me play with dunking into the tubs to make my own "cool looking picture". It was my own 70s version of Photoshop! I didnt do it that often since the novelty ran out quite quickly. I remember pictures hanging up on clothes lines in the Dark room against all the walls.

Therefore, I can imagine how if a color degrades over time in an older picture, it would leave us to see a different color. This is because we perceive color as just light reflected from an object, thus if part of a mix of colors used to make an older picture were to fade, you would see the remaining colors that did not fade.

It's a cool looking picture and, that car looks good in green.

 

It has to do with the way that the film was developed I believe. I know when I was taking photography in the '90s it was suggested that because of my issue with a couple of colors that i probably would not be able to develope color film successfully.

Harm on a side note when I first looked at the pics I said damn someone chopped the hell out of that car then realized that I was looking at a tonnnue and not a top. From this angle that would be a slick car to copy or use for inspriation. You got any more shots of it?

 

Here you go,....

A black & whit picture of a Purple car !!!

 

Just off the top of my head: I know red pigments are most prone to deterioration over time. We've all seen old travel posters that have been sitting in travel agents' windows for too long, so everything has turned blue and green because all the red has disappeared. Professionally, I know that it's never a good idea to use red paint on a building, because it doesn't take very long, compared to the maintenance time-scale of a building, for the red to turn pink.

Then, both papers themselves and the varnishes on them have a tendency to turn yellow over time. A lot of old paintings are so yellow-shifted today compared to when they were painted that they would look wrong to us were they to be restored to their just-completed state.

If both of these processes happened at the same time it could turn purple (red+blue) into green (blue+yellow).

Note that this will not change the overall colour balance of the photograph consistently. The loss of red pigment is quite specific and may not be accompanied by any corresponding shift in any of the other pigments; while if the yellowing is from the varnish it would have affected everything equally. That is why it might not be that simple to restore by adjusting overall colour configurations electronically: we don't know where the lost red was.

Wild Turkey's adjustment above takes us half-way there. He's taken out the excess yellow. What remains is to take an educated guess at where the lost red was, and add it back only there. That'd give us the missing purple car.

 

***uming some sort of fading / dye changes in the color media(s), if the car was purple on the day of the photo and then faded to green, then wouldn't the gr*** have been purple that same day, too? Gary

 

No, because there was red pigment in the purple that never was in the green.

 

I see said the blind man (in cyan + magenta + yellow = black). Gary

 

Ford Mystic Purple

 

Purple and green look great together, are you sure that's not a green fade accent and highlight?

 

wish the pic was better, at least maybe this can bring a smile to the guy and reminisce..

 

I will work on the quality of the picture,.... the actual picture is like 2-1/2" X 3" if that.

 

There are lots of varibles here....some film emulsions had a color bias...when I did wedding contracts, I stated in the contract all photos were color balanced to skin tones and other colors might shift...yellow was one of those terrible shifting colors...might be whiter, or usually greenish vs yellow. The kodak pro film I used, usually vps or vph, was strickly balanced to skin tones and whites and when cured at kodak to optimize these colors/shades, was sent via cooled trucks and put in the refrig until us pros bought it, then we put it in the frig until a few hours before needing it.

Usually slide film was balanced to outside colors....green(gr***), blue(sky), red( flowers), etc as it was used mostly for outdoor usage.

So, that being said, the film, the chemistry, the processor of film and the processor of prints, the longivity factor of these components could change the outcome of the photo color wise...and if I am not mistaking, purple was not a color mastered by any of the film manufacturers...the colors found in most photos was given priority and purple was not one of them.

I was a CPP with the PP of A from 1990-1995.

CPP....Certified Professional Photographer ( one of 28 in NC)
PP of A....Professional Photographers of America

Hope this helps you guys with some of your photo concerns.

And as several of the folks here have said....the color layers of the film and photo paper and age affect the end colors you see.

If you look at a lot of old color photos (of people usually)...you will notice that the photo has turned almost overall magenta a lot of times....that means the green layer has become dominate in the paper.

Film has 3 primary sensitive colors and is sensitive to ...blue, green and red...those colors will render best in a photo and all others are at the mercy of other factors.

 

Kodachrome refresh.

 

Likely the same reason that the lone rangers mask was covered in purple felt rather than black felt....it showed up better than black on the old black n white film....

 

Kodachrome refresh . . . the roadster as I remember it.

 

Now there's a restoration! Is "Kodachrome refresh" a photo shop type plug in? Gary