"Richard Knoppow" wrote
pico wrote:
Nicholas O. Lindan wrote:
"Adam" wrote
[How do I get a 40's look in a photograph using modern
materials...]
The 40's was a decade with three very distinct periods: Pre-WWII, WWII
and Post-WWII. Let's try for a 30's look, a 30's drugstore processing
look as I take it you aren't looking for Weston, Lange or Hurell [or
Capa].
I would try for featureless gray shadows and fogged featureless
highlights.
Nicholas is right-on. Most of the photographic prits of that period were
horrid, and just as he cites. I guess you had to be there. I was.

I don't know what you have been looking at but even drugstore prints of
this period were not as bad as you describe and prints made by amateurs
and pros were about as good as modern materials

Yes, but what is sought is not the reality of old photographs
but the perception of old photographs.

Too often people who want a 30's or 40's look are getting their ideas
from either poor photomechanical reproductions in magazines or books or
from badly degraded prints, or bad scans on the Internet.

Exactly, they are looking for just that: bad reproductions
of bad photographs. The question is "how to do it in PhotoShop?"

I imagine it changes by family, but the photos in my family
albums are, almost without exception, technical junque.
I think it has something to do with Scottish genetics:
"Ye'll no be wantin' that two-penny lens, this old
bit o' broken whisky bottle will do you fine. And no
be gettin' those expensive 'enlargements' -- the Lord
d'nae take with graven images and flattery."

Though, to tell the truth, the countenances of my forebears
are of a quality that is best not preserved.

--
Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Darkroom Automation: F-Stop Timers, Enlarging Meters
http://www.darkroomautomation.com/index.htm
n o lindan at ix dot netcom dot com