"Do-it-yourself" vintage wagon photos.

I use GIMP. I reduced saturation and contrast some and then used the levels tool to increase the red levels and tweak the blue and green down a little bit. I also did a quick (sort of ham fisted) clone to get rid of most of the handicapped paint.

As to my wagon I am a wannabee wagonist. I suppose that I could take some pics of my little front engined dune buggy (tracker).

mike

 

You're killin me with these pics. I'm a Mopar guy at heart, but every time you post a pic with that 63 Ranchero in it, I feel the urge to go out and find one for myself. I love your 64 Fury wagon too, but since I already have a B-body Mopar wagon, its the Ranchero that has me drooling.

 

Thanks Jim. It's a great little rig. Being a FORD guy at heart, but having a Mopar it was nice to add it to the stable. The thing handles amazing and the 260 is real peppy (and with the custom Flowmaster exhaust it sounds awesome!) Both cars have long family history, so they compliment each other well. I know it doesn't help, but there is a green one for sale here locally. Good price too Thanks for your kind words.

*Sorry for high-jacking the thread elagache.

 

Keep'em comin'!!

Howdy Pete, Mike, Jim, OrthmannJ and Wagon Lovers everywhere,

Thanks Pete for sharing!! I don't find this very difficult so I hope others will become more bold and give it try. The key ingredients are: patience and backups . . . (should you overdo some aging effect.)

I wish I had been as clever about that handicapped space as you were with the satellite dish!!

Definitely a solid choice and . . . the price is right!!

Works really great!! Would you mind if I added your work to my collection of aged photos?

Well, what are you waitin' for? There are lots of "mature" wagons out there deserving a good home!

Cheers, Edouard

 

Go for it. No charge.

$$$$



mike

 

I use GIMP for everything. My wife wanted header graphics and favicons for some clients' websites and for some of her own. I enjoyed putting them together. Gradient background, some text, adjust the kerning, emboss it, add a lens flare here, gradient flare there, some more text, drop shadows, and done.

 

BTW Orthmannj that B&W of the Ranchero is Excellent. Fabulous use of light and shadow with perfect exposure of the highlights IMHO. It is especially noticeable above and to the left of the grill. Wonderful contrast. I could look at that picture all day.

mike

 

Thanks Mike. I have to admit the picture was taken in color. I used photoshop to change it to black and white. I took a photography class in H.S. I loved it. I sure learned a lot, and at the time all of the photos we took were with black and white film. The Fury was my DD at the time, so it wound up being the subject for many of my assignments.

 

Aged trusty wagon photos revisited.

Dear "properly aged" station wagon fans,

Earlier this week I got out my trusty wagon for some well deserved exercise and ran over to the same railroad depot turned museum that I've visited before. This time I was able to park the car right next to the vintage caboose over there and so this made for an especially suitable master for aging a photo. So for fun, here is my wagon on December 31, 2012:



And here are two examples of "time-travel" back to the 60s-70s. Here is the faded slide:



Here is the black and white print:



I used exactly the same techniques I used on my original post on this thread. In fact, *I* had to back and reread it myself - I had forgotten how I had done it!!

Hope you all enjoy this visit back to simpler times . . . . .

Cheers, Edouard

 

I am very much loving this idea...would love to try it with my Cadillac. My Cadillac is a 1987...and I don't have a clue as to whether there is a way to photograph it in a way that looks like 1987. I have some of my old Oregon license plates from that era that I could put on the car for the photos, as well. I'm not the creative one in my house...Becky is the crafty gal. I'm sure her camera would work fine...and she has been a published digital scrapbooker who knows how to mess with photos. If given the direction, I'm sure she could make it happen. Any ideas??? Locales to look for???

EDIT:
So here's my quick attempt at modifying a photo I took this last summer. I don't know...whattya think?

 

Edouard, well done. those images look great after you manipulated them.

 

I'm with you. These posts really make me wish that my wagon was more vintage than '94.

 

I'm with the Wiz here, although my wagon is a 74' no one would believe I have a "vintage" picture with 19" billet wheels and 40 series rubber, the color is from a 70's Porsche but would never have been on a Plymouth wagon of this era. I love the pics on this thread, lots of fun to see the before and afters.

 

Thanks and the only hint I've got!!

Dear Station Wagon Lovers,

Thanks for the nice replies to my little bit of photographic "enhancement."

Well, actually you have two problems. Even if you can find a location that will pass for 1987, you need to then figure out how to age the photo to look like it was taken in 1987. I suspect this is "harder" than it looks because photo technology had improved.

I was lucky, I had some photos of da' trusty wagon from the time we bought it. If you can locate some actual pictures taken in 1987 that will help a lot. You can see what then happens to to things like the color dyes.

Actually, that's a reasonably good looking attempt in my eyes. The only thing I don't know is if you didn't "dirty it up" a little too much. A real print might not have faded that much. However, the locale is perfectly reasonable. The only thing that would be better is something that "says" about 1990. Golly I have no idea how you could convey that particular time period.

Well, I suppose it could go both ways. I was 4 years old when the car was built - so I suppose photos like this should really make me feel old!!

I'm in kind of a funny place when it comes to this resto-mod project. When all this work is done, the car will have many of the conveniences of a modern car but will still look from the outside and inside like a mid-60s car. I've been really lucky to get my hands on things like original air conditioning vents and audio components that don't scream 21st century.

Life is about trade-offs. We'll see how far I can keep these compromises going!

Cheers, Edouard

 

Awesome jobs!