I'm interested in one of those color guide books that retails for around $40 in the paperback form. There is also an ebook version that retails for about $20.
I know that there are conditions that affect the quality of the original photo. But what happens when the photo is reproduced in ebook form? It would seem to me that the ebook display would be affected by the monitor color resolution amongst other things.
So the question becomes which way is the better way to go if the idea is to possibly use the photos for modeling purposes?
Thanks
If it's a good quality ebook and not a cheap scan (ebook version of Armstrong's Track Planning for Realistic Operation, I'm looking at you), and you have a capable printer, you will get good quality on paper output. What it looks like on the screen will depend on how well your display is calibrated and to what standard.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I doubt there's a definitive answer to your question. Several factors add to the uncertainty.
Color rendering in print depends on the quality of the original images, but also in how the press is set-up and run. I've seen printed color that's obviously off. The main defense against this is prepress review by the authors. Now this likely occurs through the use of, guess what?, an electronic image of the proofs sent over the internet. In the old days it would've been a physical print. But even then, the press run often didn't occur immediately after same day approval, so what was approved then depended on the press being set-up to duplicate the settings used to produce the proof. Lots of room there for inaccuracy to occur, although usually this prevented objectionable results.
An e-book reproduction of color is the results of the image setting it reproduces, but also the settings of your monitor. Again, there's oppportunity for things to go wrong, but this depends on how well the user chooses in adjusting things. Often this is a matter of perception.
It's worth noting that many railroad color choices vary in service between new in service and years down the road. Paint is better now, but some colors in the past retained the like new appreance only briefly. If you're modeling something new, that works well, but for many variations, things changed significantly so that a model representing 20 years in service needs considerable adjustment from the like new rendering. You may see an image an think it's wrong or distorted when it could be just the way it is when the image was made.
The final factor is the genetic predisposition of men (because most model railroaders are male) to often have considerable variations in color perception that are often referreed to as color blindness. If you've never been evaluated for this, it's worth asking for it next time you have an eye exam. Then you'll have an idea of how close your color vision is to "normal."
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Color rendition of things I view on my computer monitor is usually very good. Or, if it is off color, I cannot see it. And when I print it out on my medium speed HP 4260 deskjet it looks fine. Mixed color on paper is a subtractive process, a blue dot on paper looks blue because it subtracts out all the red and the cyan. If you print red mixed with blue mixed with cyan you get black. On the monitor the colors add, if you turn on a red and green and blue pixel right next to each other you get white.
Anyhow the printers do a good job and so does the software that shows us color on computer monitors.
Actually in real life, the lighting does more to mess with color than anything else. Many color pictures were taken on the way home from work or school, and the afternoon lighting makes the reds look better, boxcar browns look richer and redder. And the old cool white flourescent tubes do awful things to the way things look. And incandescent lamps have so much red in them that they used to make two kinds of color film, one balanced for daylight, and one balanced to look good under incandescent light. Many of the older photos were taken on Kodachrome which loved red and gave a nice warm cheerful look. A boxcar photographed with Kodachrome would look much redder than the same car photographed with Ektachrome. Plus, your eye adjusts the color to make things look right. Put on a pair of yellow sunglasses, and after a few minutes of adaptation, everything looks proper color. Take them off, and everything looks brighter and redder than normal, a very cheerful looking world. This effect fades after a few minutes as the eye adapts to the new lighting.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
I spent 10 years heading up pre-press at a high end printer. The technology and calibration required to get accurate color from a digital image or scanned slide to a particular stock running 8 thousand impressions an hour on a 4 or 6 color press that is 30 to 40 feet long is quite frankly nuts. Actually it goes beyond calibration to something called fingerprinting, but let's leave at totally nuts. Nowadays, color fidelity is diluted to the point of irrelevance as far as ebooks and on screen. Let's take a PDF. It had image files placed into a source document, that document was exported to PDF, and is now being rendered on your monitor. Four items that may or may not have accurate color profiles attached and/or converted. You will not see accurate color. Period. Maybe close, but in the world of true color matching, there's true, and not.
The GOOD news is, dstarr has it totally right: it doesn't matter. At 9am, the perceived color will be different than at 3pm on the exact same car-- the sky casts different light temperature at different times of day (add the light bounce effect of surrounding structures or scenery and it gets even more complex). The paint color itself will fade over time. It will be different after a dust storm or thundershower. By all means seek an accurate base color, but don't obsess over it.
Drumguy By all means seek an accurate base color, but don't obsess over it.
By all means seek an accurate base color, but don't obsess over it.
Try telling that to the Pennsy guys (DGLE) and the Lehigh Valley guys (Cornell Red)
My bad. I used "obsess" and "don't" in the same sentence on a model railroad forum. I'm trying to find a "shakes head and chugs a beer in denial and/or despair" emoji, but can't find one.
Colorblindness in men is interesting.
Right now there is a blue jar and a green cup on my desk. I can very clearly tell one is blue and one is green.
However, if you take all the blue pawns and green pawns from a Sorry game and put them in a bowl together, I cannot tell them apart.
It is very strange indeed. I know a few other people that are same way.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Drumguy My bad. I used "obsess" and "don't" in the same sentence on a model railroad forum. I'm trying to find a "shakes head and chugs a beer in denial and/or despair" emoji, but can't find one.
maxmanwhich one of those versions would be closest to the original photo.
There's really no way to say about that. You likely have a book of any kind because you don't have ready access to the research materials used to compose it.
As a historian, I can tell you that many "original" source documents have their own issues in how they depict the subject of your interest, which is what you're really after (not how the original pic of it looked.) Go back far enough and you get into B&W and colorized pics which have their set of issues, for instance.
Sticking to the color era, then it's worth considering again the discussion of how differenbt color film reacted to light and hiow that relates to how well the current image relates to what was actually there.
Another consideration is that once something has gone into print, tha's the way it wiilll always be, at least with your copy. You usually can adjust an ebioiks setting to improve it.
I posted a cartoon on the NMRA Facebook page a few weeks back that showed Sally of Peanuts fame saying that she was going to color the sky blue and grass green in a coloring book.
Linus goes into a ramble about how "green grass" is an elusive term and the actual color depends on many factors such how the wind blows turning the blades of grass etc.
Sally throws the crayons up inthe air and walks out....
Joe Staten Island West
Hi all
This question reminds me of the UK modelers incessant ongoing arguments about exactly what Southern Railway coach green is.
Then to confuse things further you get from the same, I think railway company Stroudly's (spelling) new improved engine green which isn't a green at all he was color blind so its a sort of mustard brown colour
regards John