User:ElHeineken/Archive/UserDiscussion

Joakim Bonnier

Hallo ElHeineken, die Farbkorrektur bzw. -änderung in meinem Foto von Joakim Bonnier war sicher gut gemeint; aber mir gefällt der Rotstich nicht. Viele Grüße -- Spurzem (talk) 10:47, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Hallo Spurzem,
vermutlich handelt es sich um BonnierJo1966-08-05. Da Farbkorrekturen immer einer heikle Sache sind (man kennt das Original ja nicht), bin ich froh über dein Feedback. Vermutlich habe ich versäumt nach der Korrektur die Farbsättigung zu reduzieren. Vielleicht hatte ich auch zu sehr meinen geliebten Kodakcolor Elite Chrome im Kopf, der glänzt zuweilen auch mit übertriebenem Rot :-).
Inzwischen habe ich eine nochmals überarbeitete Version (basierend auf dem Original) hochgeladen und würde mich über dein Urteil freuen. ElHeineken (talk) 20:01, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Hallo, wie ich sehe, bist Du anscheinend eifrig damit beschäftigt, alle meine Bilder rötlich-gelb einzufärben und dadurch zu verunstalten. Soeben ist es mir in Porsche 908.01 - Siffert 1969-06-01.jpg und auch in einigen anderen wie der Aufnahme von Stuck bei Regen 1976 auf der Zielgeraden aufgefallen. Bei Letzterem ist von der Stimmung absolut nichts mehr zu erkennen. An dem Foto von Bonnier hat sich nach Deiner Bearbeitung bislang offenbar nichts geändert. – Sei bitte so nett, und setze alle von Dir bearbeiten Fotos möglichst schnell wieder auf die ursprüngliche Version zurück. Ich wundere mich im Übrigen sehr, dass Du nicht versuchtest, Kontakt zu mir aufzunehmen, bevor Du anfingst, die Bilder zu verändern. Gruß -- Spurzem (talk) 14:40, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Hallo Spurzem,
Ich möchte mich noch einmal dafür entschuldigen, dass ich möglicherweise Bilder verschlechtert habe. In Anlehnung an Ralf_Roletschek's Vorschlag würde ich gerne zusammen mit uns Dreien die Bilder durchgehen, problematische Veränderungen identifizieren und anschließend über einen Revert abstimmen. Wäre dies aus deiner Sicht eine mögliche Lösung? ElHeineken (talk) 10:22, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Ja; denn es sind ja tatsächlich einige Verbesserungen dabei. Gruß -- Spurzem (talk) 12:48, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Hallo Spurzem,
Zur gemeinsamen Abstimmung habe ich diese Seite angelegt und die ersten zehn Bilder dort aufgelistet. Sobald über diese entschieden ist, kommen sofort weitere hinzu. Auf Ralf_Roletscheks Dikussionsseite habe ich Marcela, smial, und Yellowcard um Mithilfe gebeten.

Hi

Fancy fixing the other horse? :) Nice work, regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 19:47, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

 Done --ElHeineken (talk) 20:06, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Again - nice work, a much better image. Now we can see the horse properly we can decide whether it is a quality image!

Difficult area as, partly, it is a good way to point out to photographers what issues there are with their images in the hope they will do the fixing themselves :) Regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:05, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. The only downside is that I'm now prohibited to vote on that particular image but that's a rather complex topic :-)--ElHeineken (talk) 20:37, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Odd I agree. I guess you cannot "promote" one you edit however I fail to see why you should not vote? I certainly voted earlier for an FP that I edited and anyone can vote for something that is "theirs". Regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 14:37, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

File:Ford Granada Consul 2 door sedan .jpg

Not objecting, Mister Heineken. I'm interested to see what you've achieved. Dank U. It is a pity we don't have better pictures of these 2 door versions of the cars in the wiki-collections, but we don't. The earlier one, with Antwerpen cobbles, was taken with a very cheap camera. The second was taken with an Olympus OM2, I think, but it was taken towards a low autumn sun just across the road from a large shining river. Not ideal for a "factual" image. So like I wrote, thank you for what you have been able to do. Are you using GIMP? Or one of the Microsoft programs? Regards Charles01 (talk) 05:41, 28 June 2010 (UTC) (The photographer of the photographs)

Hi Charles01
As not all users agree with my work (the discussion above for example) I'm very happy that you assumed good faith on my part.
The tool of choice is indeed GIMP but the technique should work with most modern image editors.
Would you mind if I work on a few more of your analogue images, in case I should come across them? (You're free to revert, of course :-) Maybe there are a few particular images that could use a little touch up?
-- ElHeineken (talk) 17:23, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I would not mind if you improved some of my other images - especially the old ones, which may already have been discoloured by the time I managed to put them on a computer. The ones to start with, I guess, are ceteris paribus the ones that someone has kindly selected for an article, but that's a bit of a movable feast.... Let me try, from memory, a short list.

File:Opel Kadett City orange pre facelift.jpg

This is one that I tried to improve, but I think I messed up and now it looks like a cartoon. Is it past saving? Or is it one you might be able to see as a challenge. The angle is quite interesting, and I see that someone has included it in a Japanese entry and someone else in an Italian one. (The Italian link might have been uploaded by me: don't remember.)

 Done, please have a look ^_° -- ElHeineken (talk) 20:17, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think this goes a significant step in the good direction.

Tho I find it slightly hard to come up with an "instant judgment".

But it looks more natural and less doctored, which is precisely what that picture needed.

(The original colo(u)r was a bit on acquired taste: but that was the 1970s.)

Thank you much. Charles01 (talk) 05:48, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

File:Standard Nine Castle Hedingham 1056cc reg 10 june 1938 06.JPG

This is not an old picture at all. I took it last year. It could be quite a good picture and one that follows the wiki guidelines for car pictures. (The two don't automatically coincide.) But the Standard 9 is beautifully polished and some toad parked something violently orange next to it. I tried doctoring it to reduce the reflection of the something orange. It is better than it was. But it still looks horrible, and I am afraid that if I try doctoring it any further I will go too far and ruin it. Again, I don't want to interfere with your day job(s), but if you could see this as a challenge....

 Question As the cars colour is black, I experimented with desaturating the reflections on the paint. It worked amazingly well. Before starting that task I wanted to as if you could e-mail me the original image to work on? (The previous reduction of the red cast left some sharp edges (like dried up water) in the red reflections).

I've a feeling the colour was dark dark dark dark dark blue. Though whatever it was, it was not, I am sure, the original paintwork, so if it's easier to think of it as black, do. It looks better to me already, but maybe that's wishful thinking, or the way that the sun is shining differently in my office. Anyway, to celebrate I put a small entry on the anglophone wikipedia. I must have the original picture somewhere: it's just a question of finding it.

ME TODOI'll upload it - try for later today. Also, while I think if it, I wonder if there's anything to be done about the extent of reflaction on the front windscreen. But that (for me) is not the big issue. Charles01 (talk) 06:03, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

OK now I uploaded the original one. Looks even worse. Over to you. Charles01 (talk) 08:29, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done Removed the yellow bottom right corner and desaturated the orange reflections on the paint. I tried the reflections on the chrome as well but it did not look good, therefore they haven't been changed. What do you think?
Regarding the reflections there is too little contrast left to try an adaption. My suggestion: Use a polarize filter next time :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 20:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

That is hugely improved. I'm not sure my little pocket camera knows about filters, but I'll ask around. If I really wanted to quibble (and I really don't) there's still a little bit of orange from ... somewhere on the front door handle and a little bit more on one of the headlamp surrounds. But I feel really mean mentioning it after you did such a fantastic job. No one would notice it if they hadn't spent the last twelve months mulling over that orange monster that parked next to the little Standard I'd been waiting to photograph till the sun went to the right place.... Thank again. Charles01 (talk) 20:09, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done I misstook the orange door handle for a turn signal, silly me. Orange on the handle and the left lamp as well has been desaturated as well. --
ElHeineken (talk) 20:31, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I feel a bit bad for having noticed. (And there is a confusingly orange garden chair just the other side of the Standard's bonnet/hood.) But it is (even) better now. Regards Charles01 (talk) 20:43, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

File:Audi 100 GL 1972.jpg

I don't think this will ever be a good picture, but someone kindly adopted it for German wikipedia, and I'm 99% sure that someone wasn't me. This is one that I asked someone else to improve, and he did. You'll see it is much improved. It is possible that there simply isn't enough there for further improvement to be possible.

 Done This is the result of several days of trying various ideas. I would consider it an improvement, but the time it took would probably have been better spent creating a sketch (vector graphic) based on the picture and illustrating the article with it. :-)
-- ElHeineken (talk) 19:22, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I am very surprised how much further improvement was possible with this one. Surprised and delighted. Thank you much. If you were charging an hourly rate for your time, I suspect we might consider the cost not justified. That is a lesson for the future. But meantime, I hope it was a useful learning exercise.

File:Audi 100 LS C1 1972 photo 1973.jpg

Potentially this is a better picture, but somehow the resolution is lousy.

Considering what an important car the first Audi 100 was, and how many wiki-pictures of it there are, we are very short of reasonably wiki-useful pictures of reasonable quality. I did take one at an old-timer fest last year, but that one isn't really inspired. Though being on a digital camera it is at least relatively clear.

 Done The green cast is gone but due to the colour fidelity and the contrast, there's only limited room for improvement. -- ElHeineken (talk) 18:10, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there's a lack of resolution here (I think that's the word) and a lack of sharpness and a huge amount of reflection. I can see this would be a difficult one to save, because of the faults with the original. And every time I look at it there's more and more unnecessary and unhelpful reflection. Pity, because the angle is quite good, and the car was a good bold if slightly unusual colour. Also, it's quite a good portrait of my father's right ear. (It was not his car: I think the dealer let him borrow it while his Peugeot 504 was being repaired.)

Don't take more time on this, please. I agree that the underlying problems are too great. Charles01 (talk) 06:03, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

File:Opel Manta Garmisch.jpg

This is really at the other end of the spectrum in terms of quality (only my judgement so not unbiased). I think it's already a good picture. But it was nearly 40 years ago and it was a cheap camera. And I think it was raining. I wonder if with a little bit of subtle attention it might become an even better picture.

 Done Removed the black lines, the green cast on dark areas as well as the pink cast on light areas. The colour saturation has been reduced a little. -- ElHeineken (talk) 18:54, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I like it. Charles01 (talk) 06:03, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

File:Opel Ascona A Caravan.jpg

I seem to have Opels on the brain, now. But while I'm there I just remembered this one.

There's a shop in the background with lights on so maybe this was an early attempt at night time photography. A bit more challenging than the Manta? Well, if you will take these on I do not think you will want to do them all at once.

 Done I was able to reduce the brown cast in the darker areas. Unfortunately there's not enough room to increase the luminance further.
-- ElHeineken (talk) 19:01, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the lesson here is for me. But then again, no one today uses that kind of camera, and even when I was 17 or 19 or whatever, if I'd been a couple of years more experienced, I'd not have attempted the picture with that cheap camera and the evening light (absence of). On the other hand, it does show how an Ascona Caravan looked. And for a number of wikientries people (I don't think - at least in most cases - I) have reckoned it was the least bad available shot of an Ascona 1 Caravan. And that was before you improved it. Which you have been able to do significantly. Thank you again. Charles01 (talk) 20:01, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I could almost certainly find sixty, but somehow six feels like a friendlier number.

I am unable to judge how far my opinion on what needs improving will interface with your (1) opinion on the same subject and (2) with what you are able to do with the available tools. But if we feel that this wiki-works for both of us, I will be happy to come up with another little list.

(Incidentally, I have huge respect for Lothar Spurzem, though German is not my Muttersprache and I have not read through your exchange with him in depth. But he uploaded a really beautiful picture of a Borgward Hansa in profile by the Rhine - I think maybe at Andernach. And very often when I find a good picture of a car - especially in German wiki - it is one of his.)

Success to you

Charles01 (talk) 19:31, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the comprehensive list.

Regarding Lothar's images: When I stumbled across them, especially the Formula One related ones from the 70s, I was simply fascinated and tried to improve them. Unfortunately I crossed a boundary when I removed intentional colour casts (morning blue, etc.). It certainly gave my enthusiasm for wikipedia and commons a hefty blow, but I think I'm recovering.

It's rather late and I need to get some sleep, but I'll be back for more tomorrow :-)
Best regards, -- ElHeineken (talk)

File:M B 600 Pullman Wiener Ringstrasse.jpg

I wonder if you can face a few more. Feel free to scream stop when you get to feel that way.

I'm not sure how this would look if the colour balance wasn't so messed up. Might be a little bit more impressive?

 Done Quite a tough one. Actually I wasn't able to get rid off all colour casts. It seems that either the car is too blue, or the darker areas too red. I opted for blue..
-- ElHeineken (talk) 19:45, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think this was winter sun - maybe January sun - in Vienna. Very bright but from an impossibly low level. And the Ringstrasse on that southern section near the Staatsoper has high dark coloured buildings which cast heavy shadows. But if you're wandering around a city looking for cars to photograph, and you see a 600 Pullman, you don't let the simple matter of all the light being in the wrong place put you off. Least it seems I didn't. Obviously you've improved it, and now that I have seen what you are capable of I am clear that you ha much more success with this one than I would have done. Thank you. Charles01 (talk) 20:06, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

File:Lancia Appia ca 1960.JPG

Maybe this is just too fuzzy. But I like the angle and the atmosphere of the fence, and the chock under the back wheel. Somehow a picture very much if its time and place. But don't take a lot of time on it if you think it's past saving.

 Done Due to the sunshine, I opted for a warmer approach during colour adjustment. Adding a little sharpness did not help the complete image but the front grill is a little more prominent now.
By the way, do you prefer images that tend to have a warm colour cast (Kodak Colours :-) or rather a blueish cast.
-- ElHeineken (talk) 15:18, 4 July 2010 (UTC).

Again (since I reacted below first) thank you. Clarifying he front grill is a useful enhancement.

I do not know if I have a 'good for all situations' answer to the Kodak color or the Agfa question. I used to buy Agfa films, mostly, so when correcting the tint it is maybe helpful to err towards the Kodak in order to balance any resulting systematic bias, if that makes sense. There was also a 3M color slide film that I remember finding good once or twice: I wonder if I can dig out that Dino picture. But with older pictures it is hard to disentangle whether the pictures have deteriorated or my eyes / visual expectations have changed. I THINK that several of the 'worst' ones I have asked you to check out were done one cheaper "shop's own brand" film from Boots ot Dixons (in the UK) or Porst (in Germany). These shops tended to source from different suppliers at different times, I think, but they were never as good at reproducing actual colors as Agfa or Kodak, and I think they may have mutated more in the ensuing decades, in addition.

File:Seat 133 Oviedo.jpg

This is on my list of good ones. But you found a way to improve the Manta shot. And this one has found its way to a lot of different languages of wiki article.

 Done Just a little reduction of the green cast, combined with lots of touch up to remove dust and scratches. It's always fascinating to see how the removal of these small dots affects the overall image.
Just as interesting as your ability to remember the name and model of all those cars you photographed. :-)
-- ElHeineken (talk) 16:02, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Strikingly better. And I'd thought it pretty good before. I nearly mentioned the fact that I thought there was too much shadow on the front of the car, but then I thought I'd leave you alone. In any case, you agreed with me and corrected it as part of the process. Good.

Remembering names and models comes, to me, completely naturally. There are people who remember details of football teams. There are people (if you're old enough to know what I'm talking about) who can remember :DOS commands. I remember cars. I claim no moral superiority (well, not much...) in this respect.

What I find I do sometimes get wrong, where the picture was taken decades, is the year. Agfa slides for a period gave you the date (albeit only the date of processing) on each frame which was seriously helpful. Otherwise it's a question of remembering where the picture is and then trying to remember when I was there. Sometimes it helps if I can remember which car I (or with some of the oldest ones, my father) took on the trip in question. I'm usually right about years, but there are a disturbing number of instances when I think I've been wrong.

Thank you Charles01 (talk) 20:00, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

File:Peugeot 403 Break photo 1974.jpg

More problems from me aiming a cheap camera towards the sun and hoping to get away with it by photographing a lot of shadow. But these days it counts also as quite an unusual car.

 Done Removal of the dust spots gives it a cleaner look. The colours are more balanced towards blue, as the image was taken in a bright light shadow. But personal preferences might differ :-)

Definitely clearer. My personal preference certainly thinks the blue bias here makes it look more like ma car and less like a silhouette (which maybe is a word I cannot spell). Thanks you. Much. Charles01 (talk) 10:29, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

File:Ascona C 2 door Ludwigshafen.jpg

Again, it's the lighting. I guess it was getting dark. Apart from all the excessive reflections, I wonder if it would be possible discretely to get rid of the red car next door..... I picked on this one partly because it's an obvious candidate for lighting adjustment, but also because kind people have surprised me by giving it prominence in a number of wiki entries.

 Done The slight red colour cast works beautifully on the golden Opel colour. Literally hundreds of dust spots have gone, including the red car. Even though it's not a perfect retouch job. Anyway, I'm looking forward to your judgement :-)
-- ElHeineken (talk) 11:28, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Hard (for me) to become too analytical on why, but I find it much better. (I guess I need to blow it up larger to understand better what you've done. Are you just taking out the dust spots one by one or do you have a more automated way to do it? I remember endlessly taking the dust spots off [[[1]] but (1) it took me hours and (2) I only took off the big ones and now I look back at it I see that I did not finish the job. Fortunately I don't think I ever uploaded anything else as bad as that one for specks.) Back on the Opel, that was a really popular color in the 70s. It seems to have fallen quite out of favour since then. Best Charles01 (talk) 12:39, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

The pleasure is all mine :-) Regarding dust spot removal, I'm employing a GIMP plugin call "Resynthesize". It replaces a selected areas with pieces of the rest of the image. It's ideal for replacing specks. But yes, you have to select each spot individually and therefore still a lot of work.
-- ElHeineken (talk) 15:25, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

A good moment for me to stop. Like I wrote, feel free to scream "stop" when you get to feel that way. Best wishes Charles01 (talk) 10:58, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

File:Maserato 4 porte III de Valais en France.jpg

Well, like I said, if you get fed up with this lot, please do feel free to pause or even to stop. But in case you can face some more....
Sorry I seem to have got carried away with the rotate button on this one. Also I have mis-spelled Maserati in the title, but don't change that because, flatteringly, a lot of wiki pages use this one. Less flatteringly, there's a bit of a wiki shortage of decent pictures of this one. The picture is not exactly bad, I think, but with your combination of eye and tool-skills, maybe you'll find ways to sharpen it and maybe slightly reduce the reflection. I think this must be a picture I took soon after I started using an Olympus OM2, so it is already sharper than the really early stuff. But not that sharp. Not yet.

At first, sorry for the (very) late reply. I'm happy you found some time to present more of your photographs to me.

Currently I'm setting up a way to digitize my old slides using a macro lens and a (disassembled) slide projector. Unfortunately the images are rather young (2002-2009) so the probably won't me much commons worthy material. Anyway, that's the reason I couldn't spend as much time here as I would have liked.

 Done Just the usual colour adjustment, a little sharpening and increased brightness :-)

Regarding the reflections, I tried to remove some of them but unfortunately they make up the structure of the body. The result looked a bit freakish so I didn't try it any further.. --
ElHeineken (talk) 16:41, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't apologize for taking a break from this. Especially since you sound as though you're busy with something useful. Besides, I live now in England where everyone apologizes all the time whether they mean it or not and .... but this is off topic.

The Maserati looks better. That reflections issue is something I don't think I was sufficiently aware of when I was younger. I just fitted a mild filter and forgot about it. But it really seems to be the tough one with several of these shots. Anyway, thank you for the improvement. Charles01 (talk) 19:24, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

File:Ford Granada Break.jpg

Shadow. Cheap lens. Taken from the passenger seat of a car in a traffic jam. Maybe some of the themes of my less impressive pictures are becoming familiar. But again, there aren't so many pictures of the break/estate version of this Granada available, and several wiki entries use this one.

 Done De-specking, colour adjustment, removed red cast in black regions, removed green cast in dark regions, reduced colour on reflections.

It's interesting to see how the engineers built the break/estate version out of the standard version. I've recently seen this again, it looks like the extra space was sort of "attached" :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 20:43, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

first generation Escort estate

second generation Escort estate

Thank you. It's usefully better. Now I look more closely, very much better. As you may realise, when Ford replaced their first ("Euro") Granada with the second, the underpinnings were little changed. For the estate version, therefore, they were able to save money by leaving the car unchanged behind the A-Pillar. What you therefore have is the bonnet/hood/front section of the second Granada shape welded (one hopes, securely) to the central and rear sections of the first (estate) Granada shape. Nerdy people like me noticed and thought it looked a bit odd, but I think Ford probably concluded that very few customers would notice/care. I'm not sure about that: at least here in the UK the large Granada estates tended to lose out to Volvo 145/245 and Peugeot 504 competitors. But then Ford might very well reply that the very low volumes achieved by the estate versions of their Granadas (first AND second generations) both supported and justified their decision not to splash out on fully redesigning the estate version when they launched the rebodied Granada saloon.

As you may have noticed, they did exactly the same a few years earlier when they replaced the first Escort saloon with the second. The contrast is that the Escort estate was a big seller in the UK (against the less spacious Austin/Morris 1100 estate and Vauxhall Viva estate): I think, however, the Escort estate did less well in Germany and France (and surrounds) against the contemporary Kadett, Simca 1100 etc. Escort pictures added. Very dusty images which might in due course be in line for your own attention. However, I have already "played" with it - at least the second/white one - in the past, and while I have removed a lot of the dust, I may also have killed the natural colo(u)rs beyond repair.

Hmmmm Best wishes Charles01 (talk) 07:47, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

File:Alpine A110 Cortina d'Ampezzo 1972.jpg

I used to think this was a brilliant shot. I still like it. But I think the colors have changed more than some in the intervening decades. (This was not Agfa or Kodak but the 3M colorslide film I mentioned somewhere before.) And the shadow of (presumably) a street light was never a good idea. Not sure how easy it would be to remedy, though.

 Question I've uploaded two versions of the file. The latest features only the colour adjustment and speck removal (to avoid disturbing the articles using it). The other one is an attempt in removing (painting over) the black shadow caused by the pole. Personally I'm not that happy with the outcome. Could you take a close look and tell me about your impression? :-)

I find this question difficult. But if you are not happy with the outcome, then nor I am. I should not "push" you to be happy.

For

=====

If I had not known about the street light shadow, I probably would not realize there was anything remarkable about the place where the street light used to be. Tho that's impossible to prove.

I know how difficult it is to remove silly shadows or reflections. I have many failures to my (dis)credit in this respect and only one (inspired, in part, by watching you to see what is possible) that I regard as (on balance) a success. (Alfa Arna 2 door)

Against

=========

To my surprise, and despite having disliked it for nearly 40 years, I miss that shadow. Or is this irrational emotion.

You have avoided attempting the most difficult bit - removing the shadow from the wheel. I would have avoided it too. But it leaves the 'join' between the two looking a bot odd. OR is that only because I know what I'm looking for?

You have already made it a more pleasing picture by rebalancing the colour. Shame to risk wasting that effort with a less than perfect shadow removal exercise.

Conclusion.

=============

No conclusion. I'm still not sure what I think and I reserve the right to change my mind. But I think I agree with you. It was not possible to remove the shadow perfectly enough to prefer the "without shadow" picture.

Thank you again. Charles01 (talk) 08:00, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply. As we share exactly the same view on the subject I'll declare this  Done :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 08:27, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

File:Fiat 128 Kent UK.JPG

I rather like this one, but after what you did with that early Manta shot I thought you might still find ways to improve it a bit. Same rainy weather (except this time it was not Bavarian rain but English rain) and same cheap lens. Hmmmmm.

 Done. Tried a little bit of everything and the result looks pleasing to me. Let's see what the photographer says :-)

Usefully sharper and brighter, but still looks natural. Thank you much. Charles01 (talk) 18:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

File:Talbot Solara 1981 in shade of tree.jpg

Discussion of shadows (above) reminded me of this one. It's another one where the alternatives uploaded on wikipedia all have issues (including another of mine which has more distracting shadows) so that this one has been used on a lot of different pages.

Dear Mister Heineken, as far as I am concerned I will be happy if you look to these in the next two weeks or the next two years or never. But I figured that the only way to find out whether or not you are yet fed up with the excellent subtle improvements you have been introducing to some of my less than perfect pictures of cars would be to highlight a few more and then see how you reacted.

Thank you very much for any time you may be able to give these.

Best wishes Charles01 (talk) 10:51, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done A little more brightness for the shadows, dust spot removal as well as colour balance. Hopefully the colours are closer to the original look now.

Beside, sorry for being late again but this time I had to work on 1.3GB of audio samples.. All done and I should be acting quicker by now :-)

Thank you. It's certainly better. I hadn't noticed before that the car is licensed in Luzern/Lucerne/o. The lighting wasn't too clever, though. There's only 'so much' one can do for that.

(You're not "late", of course. Wikipedia doesn't do deadlines. For myself, I'd rather you did any work on these images when you are comfortable that you have time to do it, and that you are in the mood to want to do it. Presumably wikipedia agrees!)

Regards Charles01 (talk) 19:10, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

File:Citroen Ami 8 Tours.JPG

I wonder if you can face any more. Only one way to find out. This is a picture that has been adopted to several different language articles. For some reason there seem to be more photographs of the odder looker predecessor model around. I have played around with the colo(u)r balance on this over time, but I'm not sure I have it right. If you've the time and patience....

Work is in progress but dust and scratch removal will take quite some time (what a job.. :-) The result are very promising and that keeps me motivated.

One of the results of the work you have been doing on these pictures has been to raise my own standards on the matter of dust. I do seem to have uploaded several horribly dusty pictures. And it is still (for me, at least) too easy to lose some detail I shouldn't have lost when replacing dust with paintwork. The rubber strap at the back of this Citroen, and touching the road surface, is not dust, but was a common device in the 1960s/70s. The idea was to reduce static electricity and therefore eliminate travel sickness. I think I was told it was witchcraft, and a version of witchcraft that did not work. You don't see those "earthing straps" on cars these days, so I guess the witchcraft explanation has now become mainstream. Hmmm Charles01 (talk) 13:51, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done Despite spending some time curing a cold during the weekend, the dust removal is completed and colours adjusted. I didn't count the hours but I thing the result is worth every minute :-)
---ElHeineken (talk) 15:54, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Seriously better. Even the wall behind looks a whole lot more interesting. I suppose it's an old church. If I was there now, I guess I'd have gone in and looked at it, but back then I don't think - as far as I remember - I did. Thank you much for the wonderful treatment. I don't think the next one is so time hungry, but it's a little hard to predict that sort of thing, I find!

Best wishesCharles01 (talk) 18:33, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Volkswagen Passat B2 CH.jpg

I used quite to like this one, but compared to the pictures taken with digital cameras that one sees on wikipedia, it now looks to me ... faded, somehow. Helpful of Volkswagen to write the name of the car extra large on the side. I think this was a new model when I took the picture. I think, checking more closely, that I must have dated the picture wrongly. Anyhow, if there is a possibility to brighter the colo(u) without making it look like a cartoon..... And please.

 Done The cartoon look has been successfully avoided, I guess.

I remember that car from personal experience. A friend of mine used to drive it, coloured in a particular sort of cherry red metallic :-)

The design of those Passat B2 still strikes me as unusual. It's shaped like a coupé but with four doors. A combination not without effect.

It looks good. Again. Thank you. After I wrote that, I enlarged the 'before' and 'after' versions on the screen. I think this is one of your most effective transformations

I've had several friends with these Passats over the years, possibly because it's a popular car but possibly also because whenever someone had a Passat I noticed and remembered it, because I once had a Passat (B3) as I mentioned.

The first one (B1) was designed by Giugiaro and was particularly surprising because then everyone associated Volkswagen with Beetles. But actually they had already, in 1978, given us the 411 which doesn't look so totally different from the Passat B2. Except probably you have forgotten the 411. They corroded badly. Very badly. These days you never see them, though I think there may be one or two at the VW museum and / or Autostadt in Wolfsburg. I remember when the Passat B1 came out we thought it looked like a slightly less eccentric interpretation of the Renault 16. That Renault was a real game changer in terms of what people look for in a car. Ho hum. Regards Charles01 (talk) 20:21, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Morris Marina Estate became avaliable later in model life.jpg

I think I may have ruined this one already. Don't take a lot of time over it if you think it is past hope. The colour was never good and in attempting to improve I I think I made it worse, apparently by scattering rusty orange dust over the car and grey road surface beside it. Incidentally the car behind it is metallic green. The wiki picture of that does NOT (I think) need attention, but I will add it here so you can see the right colour (as far as I remember) for the Renault. Well, for you to decide whether it's worth trying to bring the Morris Marina picture back to life. Thank you. Charles01 (talk) 20:17, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Not much improved but I'm afraid the material has way too many issues to spent much more time on it.. :-(

It does look better as long as one leaves it small. Thank you. Don't take more time with it. I may. Some of what needs doing is low skill high time consumption like getting rid of more dust. I may try some of that. I made a start with the Ford Escort estate (photographed in the same car park!) enough to see that I can make a difference doing this. The best Charles01 (talk) 06:29, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Fiat 130 Coupe at Earls Court.jpg

You may well say that such a beautiful car deserves a more beautiful background than the underside of a 1930s(?) exhibition hall, but if the background isn't beautiful it might still be construed as interesting by ... someone. I guess the issues are obvious. Dull faded colo)u)s and too much of the wrong sort of reflection in the wrong places. It's not a bad picture but it is dull, and wikipedia seems to be a bit short of ok images of this beautiful car. Well ... see what you think.....

 Done The usual tools have been applied and the result looks fine to me.

It's definitely a nice car, from my perspective quite unusual for a Fiat (even a bit Ford like :-)).

Seriously better. Thank you. I think there were always car enthusiasts at Fiat, but somehow the cars themselves swung between being savagely built down to a price (is this what you mean by Ford like?...) and seriously built up to a level of quality that in the case of the Fiat 130 - especially the coupe - came close to challenging BMW/Mercedes. Though then as now, people with that much money to spend on a car refered to pay for the name of a German car. And probably of you planned to keep your car beyond 5 years, the Mercedes would always have been the wiser choice. But I agree about the Fiat 130. Fine car.

File:Nissan_Micra_1982_Cambridge.jpg

 Done During uploading my own Nissan Micra image I fancied fixing this one. I guess that's OK with you?

Very ok with me. Thank you. It was indeed on my informal list - the list of pictures that would have been on my list if others weren't. The colour just looked sad and faded and reminded me that it rains a lot in Cambridge. (This month it seems to rain a lot all over the west of Europe.) Despite the poor light, it is basically a clear shot, and as we have noticed, most of the other pictures of this Micra appear to be "post-facelift". Best wishes. Charles01 (talk) 07:49, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

File:AC-2litre ca1955 UK.JPG

I think this is more important than the Honda (below). It's used on a lot of different wiki pages because it is the only picture there is of a four door version of the car. (I shouldn't wish to boast, but the two door version picture in wikipedia is one of mine too .... there's a positive side to living in a country where history is so important!)

Actually the picture is surprisingly sharp. I think I must have borrowed a camera from someone else - most likely my father. But the issue is also horribly clear. All that blotchy shadow. Is there hope for this one? For you to judge. Also, as far as I can assess it, this one might be a long job, so don't start it unless you are sure you want to. The car has been around a long time: maybe if we wait two more years there will be clever tools that enable you to do in five minutes things that today take much longer. That's not just fantasy, if you think how much progress there has already been with these matters in recent years.

Thank you, anyhow, for thinking on it. Regards Charles01 (talk) 20:31, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I quickly managed to balance the colours. The blotchy shadows, though..

My first idea was to brighten up the darker regions. Unfortunately that affected all dark areas (e.g. underneath the car). Masking the door and therefore applying correction selectively resulted in a sort of "repainted" look. Besides, the black spots are quite dark and the increase in luminance gave them an odd look on their own.

Next I opted for a "select by colour" approach, removing all unwanted dark areas and trying again. It only created different by not less annoying blotches.. :-( --
ElHeineken (talk) 18:51, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, my son said a few weeks ago that photographing back cars is "always problematic" with all the wisdom of someone who's been photographing black cars for years. But he's right. Still, you've improved it for which thank you. Also I've been moved to enlarge it on screen and look at it more carefully than before. I had not till now noticed those small pools of fresh wet oil under the engine compartment. But I guess she was an old lady and entitled to drip even then. In the 1990s I worked for a few years in Basel and in our office Tiefgarage I remember a Swiss colleague pointing out that you could always tell where our French (well, 68/Alsace) Mitarbeiter had their parking spaces because of the tell tale dark patches under where they kept their engines. I mused to drive to work most days in a Polo which is a good size for city traffic, with then a Loerrach Kennzeichen: I never stopped to check if the car was dripping oil. These days Polo only runs a few times a year and so needs jump leads to start, but I still get nervous about looking underneath for oil drips. Hmmm Charles01 (talk) 07:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Austin Allegro in Rotterdam evening light.jpg

The colo(u)r on this was always a bit challenging, as I took it in the evening just before the sun went down. It was good and clear, though. I think I'd borrow my father's Pentax for that trip to visit the girl who many years later has become my wife.

 Done What a nice story, and what a nice surprise during colour balancing :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 19:14, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

One of the most dramatic changes of colour hues. And the strange thing is (according, at least, to my memory) that you have got the (rather unusual - even then) colour of the car just right. Thank you. Charles01 (talk) 07:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Mitsubishi Lancer 1973 - 79 Hyde Park in Fall.jpg

I still think this is rather a good one. But I think it could do with a bit more colour, and LOTS of wiki-languages use it, in the absence of acceptable alternative shots of the car. Absolutely NO urgency. Wait till the spirit grabs you. But I hope this one will be a rewarding one. And I hope you don't mind me sneaking a few more in. Thanks if you will find the moment. Regards Charles01 (talk) 23:00, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Another turquoise car that turns out to be blue.

It's interesting to see how some colour cast don't affect the perceived colour and others (like green casts on blue cars) almost completely change it.

Yes, this one was always an unusual colour combination - almost like a water-color painting. It was an expensive camera, but maybe a cheap film. And as you noticed, I do have a talent for finding the right car in the wrong light conditions. But you've been able to liven up the shades very usefully. Thank you. Charles01 (talk)

File:Volkswagen ur Scirrocco Muenchen.JPG

I always liked this one a lot. I think it's the first Scirocco I ever saw. Good angle. Good colour. Beautiful car to look at (though not, I fear, to sit in unless you are small). Anyhow, it was raining and the light was in the wrong place....

Actually, I just found and photographed and uploaded a picture of a beautifully restored very similar car last weekend. But the original one has a contemporary authenticity that even a beautifully restored one cannot, 40 years later, match. Again, thank you if.... Best wishes Charles01 (talk) 23:00, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done It seems rain is your one of your true photographic constants :-)

The result might look a bit over-exposed, but that's mostly due to the green cast being gone. As the car is green as well it looked like there was still some green colour present. --
ElHeineken (talk) 18:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the shadow was always in the wrong place, but the picture looks better than it was. Thank you. The exercise also has me looking at the pictures in a level of detail tat I haven't applied to the for many years. It's a strange feeling to see all the mainstream cars in the back ground of this one - 3 Opel Rekords (maybe including Commodore(s)) obviously absolutely mainstream mass market models at the time, but now virtually old-timers in their own right. Makes me feel rather old. Ah, well, time and tide wait for no one as (more or less) one of our top English philospher poets writes (I think .... John Donne, maybe) Charles01 (talk) 07:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

File:BMW 600 (extended bubble car).jpg

Well, I managed to leave you alone for a few days. NO URGENCY about this. BUT it has always looked rather grey to me. I think probably it was that sort of day when I found the car. If you were able to liven up the colours without making it look unnatural, that would be great. Best wishes Charles01 (talk) 16:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Finaly, more pictures. I honestly enjoy working on these and honing my skills. For a short period of time I was afraid there might be no more :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 18:46, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done A quick edit, but a nice result. At first I thought the green cast was easy to remove but it was highly non-linear. Always something new to learn :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 19:06, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

A much more friendly colour balance, but still natural. Thank you. Slightly unusually I cannot remember taking this picture. The pavement/sidewalk looks like Germany, Austria or even Italy. But the brick wall looks, to me, English. If the green cast was uneven I wonder if that means it was cheap shop-brand film. Dixon in England oder Photo-Porst im BRD. Ah well, thanks again. Charles01 (talk) 08:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Jaguar XJ6 unusual colour.jpg

I know there was a fashion for weird colours in the 1970s, but I don't think this one was ever standard. But the picture is not without presence. I took the picture near the Albert Hall in a very rich piece of London. Across the road is a leading competitor from BMW. I like that sort of coincidence. I guess if you were able to crispen the image slightly and / or make the weather look less English. Well, thank you if you will get to it. Charles01 (talk) 16:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Most interesting to me are the yellow front lights. It's actually a really strange mixture: An orange luxury car with yellow lights and a roof rack.. --
ElHeineken (talk) 19:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

This looks much better. Thank you.

In England you used to be able to buy those yellow-orange light covers for travelling abroad. In addition to changing the colour of the lights, they blanked out the bit that dazzled on coming drivers when driving with dipped beams on the right side of the road (and not, as in England or Japan, the left). As you may or may not be old enough to remember, in the 1960s and (as an option) beyond, headlight bulbs in France and Belgium were yellow which made things a bit dimmer, but was surprisingly effective at carving a passage through the sort of fog that you get a lot of in (zB.) Antwerpen.

So with his yellow covered lights and his roof rack this man is telling us that his car is ready to travel to (and maybe beyond) France. I do not like to speculate on what he is telling us with the unique colour of the car's bodywork.

Best Charles01 (talk) 08:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting. Thanks for the additional information :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 12:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Mazda 929 NL 1985.jpg

Another dull one, but I see that someone has recently taken it for Korean wikipedia. Although the license plate is Dutch, I think the picture may have been taken in England - most likely Cambridge. They don't do houses like that in the Netherlands, and if they ever did they would surely have been replaced with something more democratic during the twentieth century. Charles01 (talk) 16:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Unfortunately I wasn't able to remove the green cast from the darker regions. I would still consider it an improvement, though. --
ElHeineken (talk) 11:07, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I think it was always a dull picture of a dull car on a dull day. But also, now, an unusual car. And you have improved it carefully but usefully. Meiner Meinung nach. (Excuse me, but we have a student here from Grossraum Mannheim for a week. He is here to improve his English for the Arbituur. I hope it will work. But inzwischen I am reremebering a little of my half forgotten German!)

Sehr gut :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 16:22, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Mazda 929 Wien mit Schnee.jpg

This is another one that someone thought would work on Korean wiki. There aren't many pictures of Mazdas this old around in the wiki-world. That stay in Vienna was one of my first visits to anywhere with a 35mm camera. These days I think I'd know my limitations and not attempt a 'portrait' shot of a car in snow. But ... again ... if you were able to enliven the colour balance a bit without making it look artificial, that would be an improvement. And thank you. Charles01 (talk) 16:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Quite hard on the colour balance side. Mostly because there was not much blue left to work with. An interesting note on scanned film material is that the even the colours are spread across the film grain. When zoomed in at 100% it can be seen that, even if the the colour looks uniform from a distance, it actually consist of a colour pattern. --
ElHeineken (talk) 17:13, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I think when I scanned the picture from the Dias I should first have bought a more expensive scanner. Later I tried asking a photography shop to scan a few of my slides onto a CD, but their quality was erheblich schlimmer - sogar schlimmer - als die von mir erledigd Bilder. Ah well, few things are simple as you think they will be, and maybe it's the illusion that everything should get easier all the time is one of the curse's of our age. But now I'm (1) writing off topic and (2) not sure whether - or not - I mean what I write.

Anyway, it was never going to be an easy picture to treat, but you made it better. Thank you.

Regards Charles01 (talk) 07:16, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Opel Rekord E1 mit Schnee.jpg

Looking again, I'm still not sure how much of the dirt here is on the picture and how much is on the car itself. I DO think that with this car the angle is an interesting one. But it was a grey day in a grey winter, and the cheerful Fruehlings-Gelb simply looks like another shade of grey in the picture. There may be a lot of dust which I can remove for myself as easily as you can. But if, in the meantime, you were able to improve the colour, that would be fantastic. Meine Meinung nach. And again, thank you. Best wishes Charles01 (talk) 16:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done The dust spots have been left for your enjoyment :-)

Regarding spot removal, have you been able to get the resynthesize plugin for Gimp running? --
ElHeineken (talk) 18:51, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Much better colours. Thank you. Almost as if the sun was shining. (I don't think I'd trust myself with the resynthesize plugin for GIMP, but maybe one day I'll experiment quietly some place.) Regards Charles01 (talk) 08:22, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

File:Ford Sierra mit Baustelle.jpg

I do not much like this one, but it has found pride of place on the German wiki entry, and from there made it to various other versions. The good things are that it is a red car. I think red cars look good in the small wiki-sized shots we tend to get. And it is one of the earlier Sierras, before the marketing department messed with the designer's original concept. (I think the designer was Patrick Le Quenant who soon afterwards moved to Renault: but I might be wrong about that. What I hate about this picture is the colour of the fence behind. Is there a way you could change the fence to a less offensive colour without significantly affecting the red of the car itself. Please?

My son (who is still in bed - school vacation & a late night yesterday) recently found a way to change a lilac coloured VW Typ 2 van in the background of a picture I did of a Ponton Mercedes into a more less distracting shade of grey. I do not have the "before" version, but here's how it looked "after". If you know what you are looking for, the colour of the van maybe looks a bit unconvincing, but if you did not know, I think you would not notice anything strange with the colour of the (now) grey VW van. I think a sick-green fence may be more difficult, but a simple grey-brown coloured fence would (at least to my eye) be much less offensive than sick-green. And thank you if you will have any workable thoughts on this. Charles01 (talk) 12:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done The hue of the fence has been tuned towards brown, giving it a more wooden look indeed.

Total transformation. A picture that last week made me regret having eaten my supper now is actually quite a good picture of an interesting car. Brilliant. And thanks Charles01 (talk) 07:16, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Dino laut Bertone.jpg

Another victim of the rainy climate. Not exactly a bad picture: I like the rain drops. But I think the colour could be enlivened. If you agree? And thank you. Charles01 (talk) 10:21, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Unfortunately I wasn't able to remove the slight green cast in the shadows, but I would consider it a minor distraction. --
ElHeineken (talk) 19:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the colour looks much better. Thank you. I wouldn't have noticed the green cast if you hadn't mentioned it. I simply look at the picture before and after, notice the difference, and decide that the new one looks bolder and more pleasing and just as 'natural'. I am not a scientist so reserve the right to get some of this stuff wrong, but I think the more that people investigate how human vision works the more they find that what you actually see, in terms of colour and detail, is more to do with how the brain interprets the signals coming through the eyes, and less to do with any objective version of what you see. In other words (as I first noticed when a colleague asked me about the colour of some shoes he was buying for his child at the airport, but have noticed several times since) we really do all of us see different colours differently, though it is really hard explaining those differences to one another, and clearly there is a reasonable consensus over what looks "better" and what looks "worse" than before. End of digression. Have a good day. I noticed I need to find time this week or next to buy two summer tyres (tires if you speak American): Toyota Previas eat tyres for breakfast.... Still, it will save buying them next April when our VAT (MwSt) will have gone up to 20%! Charles01 (talk) 06:01, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

File:Alfa Romeo 90 Rom Regnerisch.jpg

I do not like this one. But it reminds me of a very rainy week in Rome when I had just got my Olympus OM2 and was learning to use it. In the rain. Wikipedia seems to be short of good pictures of this car. And someone has chosen this one for Japanese wikipedia, which makes me feel good. I do not think you can transform it into a very good picture. But maybe slight work on the colour tints could make it slightly more interesting without making it look artificial? This if for you to judge. And again thank you. Regards Charles01 (talk) 10:21, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done It took me a little longer to start working on your images again as the weeks were (and still are) quite busy. The colour balance on this one has been slightly tinted towards a warm approach to counter the rain. I hope you like it :-)

Thank you. I hope "busy" means rewarding (as in someone is paying you lots and / or you're enjoying it). These pictures don't go away but there's certainly no race here. I like what you've done with this picture, though these days I don't think I'd have angled it like that. Then again, if it was raining, maybe my number 1 priority was to avoid getting rain on the lens. Best regards Charles01 (talk) 06:03, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

File:Mitsubishi Celeste Rotterdam 1976.jpg

If the background looks familiar, it's because I took this at the same time and in the same street as the picture of the Austin Allegro which you already treated. This one is a more subtle shade of blue, though. It's a good clear shot which I like, but you get the same colour distortion from the evening sun, and it may actually be more difficult to treat because I think the car had a "metallic" paint finish. But these judgments are for "your department". Thank you for anything you will be able to do. Best Charles01 (talk) 08:19, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Suprisingly easy to treat. The colour looks quite similar to my family's Datsun: File:Datsun260Z-2+2.jpg.

Yes, I'd thought that one might be tricky. Glad it wasn't. It's hugely better, I think. Thank you.

The 260Z is a handsome beast, and you've got a good angle for it.

Gruessen Charles01 (talk) 06:06, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

File:Fiat 128 estate Toot Hill when new ca August 1971.jpg

I think I was trying for an artistic angle. Nearly 4 decades later I think I was trying a bit too hard. But it's not too bad a shot. The problems are obvious, though. Someone put the sun in the wrong place and there is too much shade on the front. Also there is a line on the door. I will try and study and learn from how you will treat that. (I already moved some dust spots, but I do not find slanting lines so easy.) Again, thank you if... Best regards Charles01 (talk) 08:39, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Unfortunately I forgot adding to the comments that the shadows were lit up as well. A nice photograph from an interesting angle. Even if the sun was a little bit off, it was worth it!

I'm still not sure I like this picture, but certainly you have made it much better. Thank you. Charles01 (talk) 15:57, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

File:Triumph Acclaim in Rome.jpg

Triumph Acclaim

I'm just about to upload a better - albeit more boring (all opinions laut Geschmack) picture of this one so I'm not sure I should trouble you with it. I have always liked this one a lot because of the complicated lines in the background. The hills of Rome make for interesting angles. And I like the image of the robust lady in the background, though heutzutage, thanks to Blair and his kind, they want to think you are a terrorist of you photograph strange people in the city street. But maybe not yet in Italy. And still, on this picture, at the moment there is too much shadow on the front. I am realizing that I took a lot of pictures during that rainy week in Rome. I suppose it was because I had a new camera.

Anyway, not urgent, and not necessarily top priority in terms of priority, but Portuguese wiki uses it as well as English wiki (albeit only since a couple of days and thanks to an anonymous contributor).

Regards Charles01 (talk) 15:42, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done. What just strikes me is the resemblance with the first generation Honda Prelude.

Honda Prelude - First Generation

MUCH better. Thank you very much.

It was from the the same time as the Honda Prelude to which you directed me. Though I say that is a first generation Honda Prelude. Was there an earlier one?

The Triumph Acclaim was a Honda Ballade built by British Leyland/ Rover under license from Honda. What was a Honda Ballade? A Honda Civic with a boot/trunk/Koffer. Charles01 (talk) 15:57, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Honda Ballade

You're 100% correct. Thanks for the clarification :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 17:27, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

File:Morris Cowley ca 1500cc 1955.JPG

Not a perfect picture. The other cars were too close. But a rare picture. The other Morris Cowleys all rusted away. Presumably it was as part of the anti-rust campaign that the Eigenthumer sprayed special orange coloured paint on a secion of the rear wheel arches. On BOTH sides of the car. Is there a hope of reverting the orange colour to something less unnatural looking. Please? PLEASE?

Thank you for anything you will be able to do for this fellow.

Charles01 (talk) 20:26, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done Your judgement, please :-)

I cannot see what you have done. I guess that is the whole point. Thank you.

I notice now that the picture is less wiki-critical than I had thought because there is already a perfectly good wiki-picture of this car. But (1) that's my problem: not yours and (2) I think it does no harm that we have one in reserve. Best wishes Charles01 (talk) 07:16, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

File:Morris Ten-Six.jpg

In terms of blackness, this has always been a no-no but there is - or at least when I uploaded it there was - no wiki-available alternative. If it's past praying for, please don't waste time praying. But your judgment on this is more to be trusted than mine! Regards Charles01 (talk) 08:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done At least a little improvement, even though the noise comes through. --
ElHeineken (talk) 10:35, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I thought this one would be difficult, but it is quite a lot better than it was. Thank you. Charles01 (talk) 10:05, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Volkswagen 412 Sedan FrankfurtM.jpg

I think the answer may be "no", but ... see what you think. I quite like this one, but it dates back to my early days and (as so often) the sun was in the wrong place. But my real issue with it is that silly concrete bollard ..... your call. Thank you in contemplation of any minor miracles. Regards Charles01 (talk) 13:54, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done Suprsingly tough, but I gave it a try. Let's see what you think. --
ElHeineken (talk) 10:34, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Again, thank you very much. Almost too punk for my taste. But much better than it was and there wasn't too much colour to start from. Many thnaks. Charles01 (talk) 10:05, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Citroen Tractions at Anet deux fois.jpg

This one, in contrast, doesn't need too much work. I think. But black cars always have their own black issues and it was a grey day. I think maybe the colour balance needs slight tuning. Or? Thank you for any thoughts you may apply to this. Charles01 (talk) 13:54, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done Colours have been balanced and the image sharpened a little. It has lost its green cast, that should be an improvement :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 16:32, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I've not studied this one yet, but I think it will have been less difficult than the other two. And it did need brightening. Thank you. Charles01 (talk) 10:05, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, much better. Thank you. Charles

File:Mercedes Benz 350SL Eurospec 1983.jpg

Another ugly green fence.

Were you able to turn it a less offensive colour, yes please. Totally unurgent.

The image also appears to have a lot of dust specks on it. Please DO NOT take time getting rid of those. I think I have learned how to do that for myself, now, and I think possibly your photo-related skills are more usefully deployed on more specialist tasks.

Thank you im Voraus and best wishes Charles01 (talk) 12:38, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done Still not perfect due to the over exposure on the hood, but a step in the right direction for sure.

This is a real transformation. Thank you much. I think the hood might have been less over exposed if the car had not been so well cleaned and polished. And of course, there's the rain. Best wishes Charles01 (talk) 19:22, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Honda Z600 at Toot Hill.jpg

Not sure what I think about this one. But it's quite a striking profile.

And please.

And no rush.

Charles01 (talk) 18:44, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done That's a remarkable design. A real surprise is the car's back though. It's nickname is "The diver's mask" :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 18:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, again.

Funny looking little car, as we thought it. From a time when Honda were trying to get the measure of western car markets (having already steamrollered their way into motor-bikes and mopeds) and western car market were trying to get the measure of Honda cars. I think the style benefits from the extent to which they were able to start with a clean sheet. They did have the N360/N600, but that was consciously understyled. This was the baby car for people who were prepared to pay for style as well. If I'd been buying new cars then I'd probably have gone for a Beetle or a Golf and assumed there wouldn't be space for my legs in the Honda: but other folks rated "style" more highly, especially if someone else paid for the car: the English tax system of the time rather encouraged "company cars".

File:Citroen SM at Anet.jpg

 Done Working from Citroen to Citroen DS I came across your image of the SM and gave it a quick colour balance. PS: What a style! :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 16:44, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Appreciated. Thank you. There was also a Citroen Rosalie and (as I discovered only forty years later) Talbot that I photographed that day, all in the space of maybe half an hour while travelling from Chartres to ... I forget where: maybe Le Havre or Calais. But I think the sun appeared for the Talbot, so maybe its need is less acute than that of the Citroens.

File:Talbot-Lago T26 Berline ca 1950 Anet.jpg

Nope. The colour on the Talbot looks a tad out of balance, too. I wonder if it always looked like that or if the colour on the Dias has simply mutated over time. Thank you if you will be able to find a moment to improve it. Regards Charles01 (talk) 13:42, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

 Done The real colour cast was very hard to get rid of. Therefore I tried to desaturate the highlights and (at least for the car) it worked out well. --
ElHeineken (talk) 20:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I think it looks better. Not sure what desaturating the highlights involves, but probably I can work it out. It was an unusually white car, and now I think the background looks clearer too. Thank you.

I think it was a very strange light, with a really stormy sky, but a small break in the clouds suddenly giving us bright sun-light in the small area where we were. Charles01 (talk) 19:07, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Desaturation is actually quite simple, it means reducing the colour saturation (how colourful the picture is). If all saturation is removed, all colour is gone from the image and it's only shades of grey.

As the car is pure white, this comes in handy. Parts of the car were desaturated, especially where the white paint was tinted towards green (due to ageing of the film material).

It's a neat little trick for non-colourful (black/white/grey) cars, if simple balancing of the colours fails :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 17:36, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Citroen Rosalie Coupe 15CV Anet.jpg

Well, having invited you to improve the other pictures I took on the serendipitous stop in Anet, here's the last one. Black car (well, part black) seeks greater clarity. Please. I don't know how I decided it was a 15 CV (Dh. 15 PS) but I must have got it from somewhere. Maybe it was simply comparing pictures found by googling: not, alas, always the most reliable source. Hmmm Charles01 (talk) 19:16, 4 October 2010 (UTC) And thank you in advance if...

 Done As the white could be well balanced, only the shadows needed a slight desaturation. --
ElHeineken (talk) 18:49, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Usefully improved. Thank you. Charles01 (talk) 13:31, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, too :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 04:48, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Opel Rekord B Coupé Green.jpg

I know that gruen bedeutet Hoffnung, but I wonder if maybe sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. Whatever you think. Best Charles01 (talk) 16:27, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done A quite similar issue as with the green Volkswagen a few weeks before. As the image has had a green tint, balancing the colours shows that parts of the image are actually overexposed. The picture was brightened it a little as well. --
ElHeineken (talk) 12:35, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Again, usefully improved.

I did darken it back slightly (I hope without reinstating the green bias) because I think I remember taking the picture and it really was a vile rainy day! Hope you don't mind. To my eye, it is now, thanks to the both if us, a lot better. Charles01 (talk) 19:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

You're definitely right on the darkening. This is one of the culprits when working on images not taken by oneself. Correction always pushes it towards a certain target (sunny, warm, dark, cold, etc.). If that target is unknown it's likely to result in some kind of unnatural manipulation. :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 08:49, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Honda Prelude - 1980.jpg

On the subject of the early Honda Prelude (above) .... I am not sure it's realistic to ask to see more of the front of this one. Black plastic will always be black plastic. But maybe this is nevertheless a suitable candidate for The Treatment. Depending on how you judge it. Best Regards Charles01 (talk) 19:38, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done The image somehow looked familiar, then I saw that I already work on it December 2009 :-)

The shadows have been desaturated to avoid tinting the highlights. It does look a little unusual but the result still justifies the means (from my point of view). --
ElHeineken (talk) 12:56, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I think each change has been an improvement. Though maybe now this one has improved as far as it can! Best wishes. Charles01 (talk) 19:29, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Moskwitch 428 (estate version of 408) Wien.jpg

Not a bad picture, I think, but nor a specially good one. Maybe there is scope for work on the colo(u)r balance? Your call. Best wishes Charles01 (talk) 10:05, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

 Done Just a basic colour balancing. If there's anything I could do additionally, just let me know :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 14:34, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I think the colours look more realistic now. I really do not remember how they looked at the time. I remember it was cold. Best regards Charles01 (talk) 17:07, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Audi 50 a Strasbourg.jpg

I've always liked this one, and I uploaded it early on before there were too many wiki-pictures of the Audi 50, so it's been taken up by several different language versions.

But it was never sharp enough. Not sure how much you can so with that.

Part of the reason it was never sharp enough is that it was raining, so probably it was a very slow shutter speed. And I was wandering round Strasbourg while waiting for a train, possibly with a rucksack, so probably I was not at my most stable. The other problem with the rain is that the colour balance is not perfect. I wonder if that might be gently corrected, without over pinking it. There's nothing inherently pink about a concrete apartment block on a grey day in Alsace: but slightly more pink is still, I think, needed to move us closer to the way things actually looked back in 1975.

Well, as ever (1) see what you think and (2) no rush.

(I'd been meaning to pass you a Toyota picture with several issues and I still will: I think that one may have been taken from a moving car, which was not a good idea with that type of camera. But there are more dust blotches that I want to remove first, and I just came across this Audi shot when someone gave it a new category.) Best wishes. Charles01 (talk) 06:46, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

 Done The sharpening turned out quite well, I think. The saturation could be reduced further but I wanted to wait for your opinion before proceeding. --
ElHeineken (talk) 14:49, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I like what you've done to this one. Thank you. To my eye, the saturation balance looks just fine (though I had to ask someone here what it meant). Regards Charles01 (talk) 17:14, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm happy you like the result. Sorry for throwing technical terms at you, though :-) --
ElHeineken (talk) 06:47, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Toyota Cressida Coupe 1977.jpg

I find this one particularly difficult. It was taken from a moving car with a cheap camera. And even though I know where the shape of the car is meant to be, I cannot tell where the white bollard (in front of the Renault 5) ends and its shadow (on the bonnet/hoot of the Toyota) begins. But the car is relatively unusual, and the angle and background are not especially bad. I wonder what you'll think.... Success Charles01 (talk) 19:29, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

 Done A bit more complicated as expected (the colours curves had to be aligned manually). The shape, colour and look of the Toyota makes it quite a nice car. If just the 1970s metal was more resistant to corrosion..

Regarding sharpness, there's not much I can do as it's motion blur. A little out of focus can be (sort of) corrected by sharpening the image additionally. Reducing motion blur is possible but require more sophisticated algorithms and tools I'm not that familiar with. --
ElHeineken (talk) 15:03, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I still don't like this one: it still has issues. And yet, it's not such a bad picture in some ways. Anyway, you have certainly improved it. That's good. Thank you. Charles01 (talk) 09:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Toyota Corona II Coupe second generation in NL.jpg

Someone tried to brighten this one a couple of years ago, but did such a crude job that .... The location was Leiden which is a very photogenic town, but those Dutch people don't always leave their cars in the correct light!

Well, I think the earlier unbrightened one is still accessible. Maybe (unless you think it's beyond prayer) you'd prefer to use the version from before I attempted improvement.

As ever ... your call. Thanks for anything you will be able to do Charles01 (talk) 19:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

 Done I gave it a try but I'm undecided whether it's worthy improvement over your version. What do you think? -- ElHeineken (talk) 15:25, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I think yours is the best of the three. So I added a fourth. Hope you don't mind: I simply lightened it a bit without (I hope) losing the improved clarity you had introduced. I think the "intellectual justification" for lightening it comes from the fact that most people, if they see it at all on wikipedia, will only see it very small. But I am not sure whether or not I convince myself with this argument.

It's rather good of the road surface, no?

Regards Charles01 (talk) 17:25, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I tried to lighten it as well, but they way I did it, the very noise shadows were lifted up and showed their ugly face. Your approach left them down which makes the result a lot more appealing than mine. It works out very well (considering the circumstances). --
ElHeineken (talk) 08:20, 19 October 2010 (UTC)