Little Muddle

[Oldddudders]

8 hours ago, John Besley said:

This could be Crediton in the early 1960s as both engines where 72A Exmouth Junction based 

 

Is the signalbox in the right place?

[KNP]

Coal train passes by......

 

[Ponthir28]

And a passenger train going the other way. Busy morning.

[aardvark]

Amazing.

 

A busy morning.

 

[aardvark]

21 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

I tend to agree, although I feel that sometimes model railways in b&w are less convincing as mono seems to show up modelling defects more than colour (not that there are any defects on LM!

 

 

I find this an honestly interesting statement, and have rated it as such.

 

I had been under the impression that models can have over-saturated colours, often to compensate for poor lighting, which are highlighted by photography. In the extreme, B&W photos are completely de-saturated, and would therefore mask over-saturated colours, thereby removing one potential fault.  By that argument, some models should look better in B&W.

 

https://www.bouldercreekrailroad.com/choosing-the-right-color.html

 

Perhaps you're saying that without colour to distract you, you're able to see things in a photo that you wouldn't have otherwise noticed.

 

[Tony Teague]

4 minutes ago, aardvark said:

 

I find this an honestly interesting statement, and have rated it as such.

 

I had been under the impression that models can have over-saturated colours, often to compensate for poor lighting, which are highlighted by photography. In the extreme, B&W photos are completely de-saturated, and would therefore mask over-saturated colours, thereby removing one potential fault.  By that argument, some models should look better in B&W.

 

https://www.bouldercreekrailroad.com/choosing-the-right-color.html

 

Perhaps you're saying that without colour to distract you, you're able to see things in a photo that you wouldn't have otherwise noticed.

 

 

Interesting; perhaps I am!

I may be wrong, but don't think many of us model for the sake of taking photographs of our models; although my 'main' hobby is actually photography, I confess to taking very little care with shots of my railway - they are more like 'snaps' - but perhaps I should.

I agree too, that models can tend to be over-saturated as we tend not to think about "colour scaling", so desaturation can also be a useful technique when photographing our models; here is one of my shots as taken:

 

 

Then de-saturated:

 

 

and finally in monochrome:

 

 

If I have a preference for viewing - and even for 'realism', such as it is, then its probably for the de-saturated version!

 

Apologies to Kevin for diverting his thread!

 

Tony

[aardvark]

1 hour ago, Tony Teague said:

 

Interesting; perhaps I am!

I may be wrong, but don't think many of us model for the sake of taking photographs of our models; although my 'main' hobby is actually photography, I confess to taking very little care with shots of my railway - they are more like 'snaps' - but perhaps I should.

I agree too, that models can tend to be over-saturated as we tend not to think about "colour scaling", so desaturation can also be a useful technique when photographing our models; here is one of my shots as taken:

 

 

Then de-saturated:

 

 

and finally in monochrome:

 

 

If I have a preference for viewing - and even for 'realism', such as it is, then its probably for the de-saturated version!

 

Apologies to Kevin for diverting his thread!

 

Tony

 

Thanks Tony.  I take @KNP as someone who does model for the sake of photograph, so I'm assuming he won't mind this discussion.

 

It's good to have someone with photographic credentials in on this, and your photos are discussion-worthy.  For me, looking at them with my eyes and on my screen, I find the first a little over-saturated, but the 2nd a little under, so maybe somewhere in between.

 

I make no claim to being any sort of colour oracle: my own layout is no where near the completion or craftsmanship or yours, so should not be construed as criticism of any sort.  I am interested in this topic as I lurch towards having colours (other than plywood) on mine, and am somewhat concerned about the need to do something before I can see that I too have over-saturated colours.  Analysis paralysis.

 

[John Besley]

17 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Is the signalbox in the right place?

Not sure guess someone will know

[Oldddudders]

2 minutes ago, John Besley said:

Not sure guess someone will know

Actually I know that it isn't - and I went to Okehampton and back last Monday. The box is on the upside, country side of the level crossing. Token exchange takes place there. 

[Tony Teague]

1 hour ago, aardvark said:

 

Thanks Tony.  I take @KNP as someone who does model for the sake of photograph, so I'm assuming he won't mind this discussion.

 

It's good to have someone with photographic credentials in on this, and your photos are discussion-worthy.  For me, looking at them with my eyes and on my screen, I find the first a little over-saturated, but the 2nd a little under, so maybe somewhere in between.

 

I make no claim to being any sort of colour oracle: my own layout is no where near the completion or craftsmanship or yours, so should not be construed as criticism of any sort.  I am interested in this topic as I lurch towards having colours (other than plywood) on mine, and am somewhat concerned about the need to do something before I can see that I too have over-saturated colours.  Analysis paralysis.

 

 

This is of course a massive topic!

One issue is that photo-editing software such as Lightroom, uses a 16bit (ProFoto) colour space which provides 65,535 variations of colour and tone - far less than we see, whilst the best digital cameras only capture images in 14bit; we then reduce this still further when we upload to the internet which uses 8 bit (sRGB) - only 256 variations.

To add to this most people's TV and PC screens are not correctly calibrated (usually way too bright), and neither are their printers - so what you see with your eye is not accurately represented either on a screen, nor in print.

I have always been told that when processing, for example, landscapes, one should try to reproduce what one actually saw - which might actually involve increasing the saturation of colours, brightness and so on - but so much depends upon the ambient light at the time the shot was taken!

 

[Siberian Snooper]

I think that the desaturated photo is the more realistic one of the two, it gives the photo a slightly grubbier appearance, which is what I remember, when I was a kid, back in the 50's.

 

 

[Alister_G]

4 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

I may be wrong, but don't think many of us model for the sake of taking photographs of our models;

 

As someone who also models with the main aim of taking photographs of the result, this discussion interests me, too.

 

As you may or may not know, I built Ladmanlow with the object of photographing it against real landscapes, and therefore my colour palette is very much aimed at blending in with the countryside I shoot it against. For this reason I use a very muted and almost "dull" set of colours for the ground cover, which in artificial light can look wrong, but set against a real backdrop in daylight, they work fairly well.

 

Taken Inside with artificial light:

 

 

 

Taken outside in daylight.

 

 

I have learned that to get the right "feel" it is sometimes best not to model what your eye sees, but what you think it should look like, particularly anything with extremes of colour, so black blacks, and white whites, and bright greens, should all be toned down.

 

Apologies to Kevin for hijacking the thread again.

 

Al.

[KNP]

I'll let you into a little secret....

 

Most of the time I knock the colour back on my photos, not always but most of time, as I find them to full of colour and they need dulling a bit.

It also goes without saying that the layout lighting, type of room lighting and the camera settings all play there own part in this colour balance battle.

I used to use two portable 125w studio lights with reflecting umbrella's  and though this was a pain to set up they did give a very sharp light but most of the time I would de-saturate the picture and now with the new(ish) LED pelmet lights I fell I don't needed them as I can adjust the lighting effect with the dimmable LED's (one double strip of white and another double of warm white).

 

I can set it all up, take a picture and still find myself adjusting on Affinity ....!

[MrWolf]

I have a similar philosophy, although I'm not intending on lugging a 20' layout anywhere.

I have kept to a muted palette for ground cover also, spring colours rather than summer and quite a bit of dead grass too.

In natural light, the colours are pleasing to me. In certain types of artificial light, the greens become quite intense.

 

 

[Winslow Boy]

1 minute ago, KNP said:

I'll let you into a little secret....

 

Most of the time I knock the colour back on my photos, not always but most of time, as I find them to full of colour and they need dulling a bit.

It also goes without saying that the layout lighting, type of room lighting and the camera settings all play there own part in this colour balance battle.

I used to use two portable 125w studio lights with reflecting umbrella's  and though this was a pain to set up they did give a very sharp light but most of the time I would de-saturate the picture and now with the new(ish) LED pelmet lights I fell I don't needed them as I can adjust the lighting effect with the dimmable LED's (one double strip of white and another double of warm white).

 

I can set it all up, take a picture and still find myself adjusting on Affinity ....!

 

I assume that's to infinity and beyond sheepy bloke.

[MrWolf]

4 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

I assume that's to infinity and beyond sheepy bloke.

 

Kevin's more "Man of mystery crate", or "King of dysfunctional door hinges".

[Tony Teague]

1 hour ago, Alister_G said:

 

Taken outside in daylight.

 

 

I have learned that to get the right "feel" it is sometimes best not to model what your eye sees, but what you think it should look like, particularly anything with extremes of colour, so black blacks, and white whites, and bright greens, should all be toned down.

 

Apologies to Kevin for hijacking the thread again.

 

Al.

 

I must say that I think your approach is totally successful - superb realism!

Tony

[Alister_G]

4 minutes ago, Tony Teague said:

 

I must say that I think your approach is totally successful - superb realism!

Tony

 

Thank you, much appreciated.

 

Al.

[Siberian Snooper]

3 hours ago, Alister_G said:

 

As someone who also models with the main aim of taking photographs of the result, this discussion interests me, too.

 

As you may or may not know, I built Ladmanlow with the object of photographing it against real landscapes, and therefore my colour palette is very much aimed at blending in with the countryside I shoot it against. For this reason I use a very muted and almost "dull" set of colours for the ground cover, which in artificial light can look wrong, but set against a real backdrop in daylight, they work fairly well.

 

Taken Inside with artificial light:

 

 

 

Taken outside in daylight.

 

 

I have learned that to get the right "feel" it is sometimes best not to model what your eye sees, but what you think it should look like, particularly anything with extremes of colour, so black blacks, and white whites, and bright greens, should all be toned down.

 

Apologies to Kevin for hijacking the thread again.

 

Al.

 

 

Your scenery and blending iit with the real world is good, but if you're modelling the mid 50's and the early 60's, at least your vehicle and building paintwork appears to be over saturated, to my eyes.

 

 

[Alister_G]

5 minutes ago, Siberian Snooper said:

 

 

Your scenery and blending iit with the real world is good, but if you're modelling the mid 50's and the early 60's, at least your vehicle and building paintwork appears to be over saturated, to my eyes.

 

 

 

Thank you. Yes, the building could do with toning down a bit, especially the guttering and window frames maybe, or do you mean the stonework as well?

 

The Land Rover in the top picture is an Oxford Diecast model, with a blast of matt varnish and some weathering applied, but it's still a bit bright maybe, do you think the lower Land Rover is OK, that's a hand painted scratchbuild?

 

Al.

 

[Siberian Snooper]

Just a tad.

 

 

[aardvark]

11 hours ago, MrWolf said:

Kevin's more "Man of mystery crate", or "King of dysfunctional door hinges".

 

I like what you did there, but surely Kevin's a "man of crate mystery".

 

[KNP]

Farm outbuildings update.

 

Work been steadily progressing with the second building built and attached to the forge.

 

[Donw]

on the subject of colour.  The colour intensity of an object will decrease with the distance from which it is viewed. Of course your brain accepts this quite naturally. It doesn't work quite so well with models and photographs of them.  I remember someone mixed up a tinter which added to paints reduced their intensity. It doesn't just apply to colours black and white are similarly affected.

 

This causes a particular problem with loco and stock colours. A colour patch held against a loco which matches would not look right if held in your hand as your walk back from the loco. This seems to affect smaller scales more to my eye.  This makes sense an 0 gauge loco view from a foot away would be equivalent to seeing a real one 44ft away whereas  a 2mm one would be equivalent to a loco 300ft away

 

Al has the right approach I feel. To me his colours look quite ok in the picture taken with inside lighting. The muted colours help to make it less model like.

 

another problem with small scale models is that looked at  side on your eyes can see something of both ends which they wouldn't with a real 16ft wagon. This bifocular aspect of our vision  doesn't feature in the image in our head but does create a sort of subtitle of this is close up thats far away. Which of course you dont have with a photo.

 

Don

  

[Alister_G]

I found this problem of reality versus the model colours particularly with the walling, of all things. I took loads of photos of real Derbyshire drystone walls, but when I came to replicate the colours I saw, they looked completely wrong on the model, and I had to settle for a much more washed out and homogenised grey with occasional highlights - as Don says, as though you are viewing it from a distance of a few hundred feet.

 

Al