This is a scan of a slide taken by a 16 year old kid with a Argus C-3 camera of Tommy Ivo's 4 engine dragster. It was taken in 1959 or 60 at Fremont Drag Strip in California. I'm afraid it's pretty hopeless but if anyone can do anything to improve the image I would be grateful. Thanks in advance.
Nothing to brag about, but quick try in a couple of minutes: straightened horizon line, brought out some detail of dragster, cropped image to eliminate dark corner vignettes.
Someone with full Photoshop and more experience will no doubt do much more. Perhaps a simulated panning technique to simulate speed motion could be added, if desired.
Thank you Beowulf its much more than I could accomplish. Could you send me a downloadable version. Just an additional note: the cable across the bottom of the photo is the 1960's version of a safety barrier!
Here you go. I also looked again and thought that maybe the dragster/strip shouldn't be centered in the photo...more cropping of the sky or foreground could improve it.
Here is another try . Tommy
The old "brick" in my experience took very sharp slides. I'd be trying to reshoot the copy with care to get the grain sharp. That's about as sharp as it will ever get. Not sure I can see the grain in this copy. The slide copy seems slightly soft overall which raises this thought.
I was in my early teens and my oldest sister had the C4... it was in my eyes then the ultimate camera. kubota king's rendition looks good.
DWU2
Loc: Phoenix Arizona area
How did you produce the image you posted - is it a scan, or did you photograph a photo in an album?
Thanks to Beowulf and Kubota King. At least I can now be sure it's Tommy's car. I always thought the C-3 was a good camera for what it was. The only problem was that I wasn't as good as I thought I was.
Scanned Ectachrome slide with an Epson Precision 600 resolution of 1200. One thing I have noticed as I try to recover 60 year old slides is that Kodachrome seems to stand the test of time better than Ectachrome. Of course back then it never occurred to me that I would be looking at them 60 years later either!
Zooming in is always an ambitious move with shots like this. Another for your consideration.
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Thanks for the PP R.G. Is there any way to increase picture size, maybe in the in the scanning process without loosing what information is there. Is there any chance this could become a 5x7 or 8x10?
safeman wrote:
Thanks for the PP R.G. Is there any way to increase picture size, maybe in the in the scanning process without loosing what information is there. Is there any chance this could become a 5x7 or 8x10?
I don't have much experience of resizing and printing so I'm probably not the best person to ask. Looking at this image full screen it doesn't take much zooming before it starts to show pixelation, but that's quite a bit bigger than 8x10, so it's possible it could print OK at 8x10. I'm not sure how to go about calculating the required pixel count or DPI for good prints. If there's not enough in the image as it is, upsizing software can add pixels up to a point. I'll post the TIFF file of my edit.
As far as the scanning is concerned, I think you're stuck with whatever your scanner is capable of, if that's your only option. There are better options than flatbed scanners that are designed for relatively large pages (foolscap? I'd call it A4). I believe that scanning of prints can be done professionally. Again, I'm not the best person to advise you.
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