Question Vintage "Red Print" photos?

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j Paul

j Paul

PFG, Picture Framing God
Joined
Feb 23, 2004
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Toledo,Ohio
Had a customer come in with 3 - 4 dozen prints from parents wedding from ages ago that they had never seen. They are on very thin paper and are fading away, have a silver sheen to them depending on the angle you hold them. He said somebody told them that they were "red prints". I have never heard or saw such a thing before.

Does anybody know about them. Were they just a proof of some sort? Is it possible to restore these? (I do restorations through the usual sources but I would be surprised if they could handle this)

Here is an example - this is a medium grade of what we would have. The ones worse than this I think are a goner, some have a little more contrast.

Any advice is appreciated.

Red Print001.jpg
 
I'd be inclined to think they were colour prints not fixed & stabilized correctly (70's typically) rather than toned. It has been some time since I've pulled out this trick, but if you know someone with a darkroom try making a B&W paper negative on a grade 4 paper, light source from a colour enlarger with cyan dialed right back, tight aperture. The last one I did (years ago now) took several hours of exposure but results were great.
 
I scanned and printed a photo for a customer recently that was only about 1/3 as red. I did the first scan straight up and the second I checked the color correction box on my Epson scanner software and the image snapped to the exact colors. We were able to confirm the color was correct by reference points in the room such as wall color and wood color of the cabinets.
 
Yes they sure are "RED" prints.

If the original was in color the silvering indicates inadequate processing because no silver would exist in a properly processed color photo. Not like old B & W where the image is made up of silver.

Your photos could be poorly processed color or.......

(Big guess here ) ...... During WW2 and after photos were made ....in a hurry....primarily by the military... using something called stabilization process.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stabilization

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/457963/technology-of-photography/36483/Stabilization-processing#ref416230

The stabilization prints I've seen were on thin paper and would deteriorate very badly unless fixed and rewashed.

Scan, convert to B&W & go overboard with levels and contrast. You might be surprised at the results.

Doug
 
Doug, I think you are on the right track. I would say these photos are 50-60 years old and are on very thin paper, almost like the old fax paper. I didn't measure but probably about 3.5 x 5 and all four edges are curled upwards. They were not color prints but do not think that they were sepia. It is possible they turned red with age but customer said that he was told the red was part of the process. If so, I have never heard or seen of it before.
 
From what I can tell, scanning with polarized light will be necessary to get rid of the extensive specular highlights. Then adding cyan might make a dramatic improvement. That would certainly knock out the red and add the green and blue that seems to be missing. If the color cast is magenta, and it could be, then red and blue are there and you'd need to add green to get an RGB image. We have Kodak software (ROC) that attempts to analyze color images that have faded and I'd try that. The key will be scanning with polarized light, though.
 
J. Paul, if I scan the them all in one batch: $70 for the scan. The color correction cost would depend on the difficulty. Without having one of the photographs I don't even know if I could correct them. Send me one and Illmsee what I can do.
 
Warren Tucker said:
J. Paul, if I scan the them all in one batch: $70 for the scan. The color correction cost would depend on the difficulty. Without having one of the photographs I don't even know if I could correct them. Send me one and Illmsee what I can do.
Click to expand...

Warren, when and if the customer comes back (said he would ) I'll do just that.

thanks John
 
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