Too much blue in pictures: Last night a friend of my was showing me pictures of his grandmother, grandfather and other members of his family tree. Pictures were taking some time around...

Bill 45

Last night a friend of my was showing me pictures of his grandmother, grandfather and other members of his family tree. Pictures were taking some time around 1947 or 1948. The pictures are in color. The pictures had too much blue in them. Film aged? No filter on the camera at the time to filter out the color blue?

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Not enough information. Were the photographs taken outdoors or indoors?
--Bob

Bill 45 wrote:

Last night a friend of my was showing me pictures of his grandmother, grandfather and other members of his family tree. Pictures were taking some time around 1947 or 1948. The pictures are in color. The pictures had too much blue in them. Film aged? No filter on the camera at the time to filter out the color blue?

M1911 Loc: DFW Metromess

Red fades faster than other colors.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

It's impossible to say for certain.

It could be that the images faded over time. Often one color fades faster than others, causing a color shift.

It also could be that the wrong type of film was used. There have been films created for daylight use as well as films to shoot under tungsten lighting. If you mix them up, you get odd results.

Images of a subject in the shade tend to be "cool" toned. Particularly when the sky is a clear, bright blue, that can tint shaded subjects quite a bit.

Filters can be used to correct issues at the time... or could be used during classic printing processes. Today it's much easier... setting custom white balance when shooting works great. But so long as images are the original RAW there is lots of latitude to change things after the fact. JPEGs have less latitude, but can be adjusted to some extent.

Bill 45

rmalarz wrote:

Not enough information. Were the photographs taken outdoors or indoors?
--Bob

Outdoors.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

google

old color photographs turning blue

There are numerous suggestions.
--Bob

Bill 45 wrote:

Outdoors.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Some of my 30-40 year old slides/negatives scanned bluish, so I adjusted the colors on the scanner and restored them to what I remembered, so the color information may still be there to be found.

Capn_Dave

M1911 wrote:

Red fades faster than other colors.

Yes the reds do fade the fastest. It is not to hard to scan and adjust the color If you have Photoshop, let’s do this. Just go to choose image. Then go under adjustments and then down to match color. And this amazing button, it’s very simple. It’s called neutralize. When you turn on the neutralize button, boom it gets rid of the colorcast just like that.

jlg1000 Loc: Uruguay / South America

Bill 45 wrote:

Last night a friend of my was showing me pictures of his grandmother, grandfather and other members of his family tree. Pictures were taking some time around 1947 or 1948. The pictures are in color. The pictures had too much blue in them. Film aged? No filter on the camera at the time to filter out the color blue?

Maybe tungsten film used?

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Bill 45 wrote:

Last night a friend of my was showing me pictures of his grandmother, grandfather and other members of his family tree. Pictures were taking some time around 1947 or 1948. The pictures are in color. The pictures had too much blue in them. Film aged? No filter on the camera at the time to filter out the color blue?

PSE has a color correct tool that likely can take care of this.

jlg1000 Loc: Uruguay / South America

Architect1776 wrote:

PSE has a color correct tool that likely can take care of this.

The OP is asking on the reason some 80 year old *prints* might have a blue cast, and nothing about on how to scan, correct and print again these.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

jlg1000 wrote:

The OP is asking on the reason some 80 year old *prints* might have a blue cast, and nothing about on how to scan, correct and print again these.

So?
Who knows why?
Different storage can do dozens of different things.
I guess you can give ALL dozens though.
I have many with yellow casts, blue and other colors.
Guess you know it all so rather than bash me give an INTELLIGENT response as to exactly why there is a blue cast in those exact photos.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Regardless of the cause, the prints can be scanned to digital and then corrected in PP.

dmagett Loc: Albuquerque NM/Sedona AZ

Bill 45 wrote:

Last night a friend of my was showing me pictures of his grandmother, grandfather and other members of his family tree. Pictures were taking some time around 1947 or 1948. The pictures are in color. The pictures had too much blue in them. Film aged? No filter on the camera at the time to filter out the color blue?

I don't know about print film. However when I scanned in slides from the 1950's. Kodachrome was perfect. Any slides I took with Ektachrome all turned blue,

photoman43

rmalarz wrote:

Not enough information. Were the photographs taken outdoors or indoors?
--Bob

Prints or transparencies?