I was speaking to a relative about old photographs, and their red appearance. I explained that this was a common occurrence, and if the was any of the original color was present, scanning the photo into an image editing software, a person might be able to manipulate and enhance those colors, returning the photo to some semblance of its original look.
So making this a challenge, I decided to see if I could manipulate a photo that I took one night last week.
But before that could happen I want to be able to load the ‘before’ and ‘after’ onto this blog. So that is what will happen now.
I’m going post this section first, place the photos, then continue my description of the what I did on my iPhone.
Before
After
As you can see I was able to upload the two images, but it was a bit more difficult than I expected, so a word about that. I'm not quit sure about the linking that was involved, but I was able to import the image into this blog using a application called Picasa 3 from Google. After a number of tries, I was able to position the two photos in the locations above by editing the the the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) coding, then using the cut and paste functions. I had worked with HTML before, so I had a bit of familiarity with the structure of the language and had an idea of what I needed to cut and where to paste it. So you can see the result above.
So here is a brief description of what transpired between the 'Before' and the 'After'.
I was walking the dog a week or so ago, when I saw an interesting lighting effect near a garage down the alley. I decided to see if the camera in the iPhone could handle the low lighting situation created by the vapor lamps used in the alley. The first photo is the result of that experiment. The color balance of the amber vapor lamp is evident.
When I decided to try documenting the 'on the fly' color balancing, I didn't have any old photos at hand that I could scan, but I remembered the image from the alley that was on the iPhone. Most of the color was gone, although the green of the leaf is visible, but the redish-orange dominates the image. So the 'Before' is my base image.
About a month ago I purchase an app for the iPhone, called Photogene. I'm trying remember the source of the recommendation but I'm not sure. It might have been a CNET list of iPhone tools. I know I saw it in an iPhone commercial. Photogene might be called a Swiss Army Knife type of image manipulation application for the iPhone. I've used it to crop images, and I checked some of the other manipulation tools the user could access. One of the tools was a color adjust function, which includes color levels (spectrum spread), exposure (light/dark and contrast), colors (saturation/intensity and temperature, and RGB (red-green-blue controls). This is a lot of control for in a piece of hand held software. Well, you can tell which of the tools, I'll be using. I have had some experience working with traditional photographic processes, so I knew the functions offered would be most appropriate.
Color saturation and color temperature would be where I would start, although I might go to exposure if I felt the image needed any adjustment to exposure or the contrast. The application has slider bars that you move across the range of that particular aspect of color balance. Starting with color temperature, I removed the warmth of the redish-orange cast. As I slid the bar, I could see the image shift and moved the bar around until I felt (a key word in 'on the fly' balancing) I had removed most of the dominant cast. I knew the garage was white (a big help) and I needed to hit an apparent gray. Once that was done, I looked at the vines, knowing the leaves were green, and began adjusting the saturation (intensity of a hue) to punch up the green. The green looked good but the redish cast had returned, so I tweaked the color temperature (cooler) until the gray on the garage returned. I kept this up until I felt everything approach a level of acceptability. That is what you see in the 'After' image. I might adjust the contrast, but it was about two in the morning, and I like the softness of the shadow details. Boom! Done!
As I was doing this entry, I tried achieving the same effect with the RGB tool and I did. With that approach, you are actually controlling the component additive colors that produces the image. The flexibility of this app really allows great degree of creative control .
Now, if you are using a computer, scanner, and an image editing application, you can achieve some pretty drama effects on an old photo. The fully equipped image editing software will allow even greater control and present you with a lot manipulation options.
One more thing, the images above might not look the same as there are on my screen. There can be significant differences in the color balance of your monitor. There is equipment that can be purchased to balanced a monitor, but even the inexpensive ones still cost a pretty penny.
As I close, I'm still amazed at the power packed in this iPhone app.
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