Color and B&W pairs

[P3D Paul S. Boyer <boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alan Lewis recently wrote:
"Anyone else see the NHRA tribute to the late Leslie Lovett, staff
photog. 
for many years?  Right there in Nat'l Dragster Magazine is a photo of

Leslie holding a Nikon twin rig, all synch'd together.

Wow, you mean there are stereo photo's of historic races?  I couldn't

believe it.

Photo Caption:
"and developed a system that allowed him to simultaneously fire two 
cameras, one loaded with black and white film and the other with
color"

oooohhhhh..... so close  :-(

But if you printed the color one in black and white you would still
have 
a stereo image.  There may still be hope if I can get someone
interested 
in the project at the magazine."

I see a challenge here.  Printing the color image in black and white
would probably give a different tonal rendition of different color
areas from that of the B&W print, so when viewed together one would
get an annoying "metallic" effect.
This could be remedied by adjusting the derived B&W using digital
processing using PhotoShop so that its response curve matched that of
the true B&W shot.
Someone should try this.  Someone ELSE!

I have recently tried a very simple attempt at retouching an old
stereograph using PhotoShop.  For my exp[eriment I started very
low-res, with a stereograph grabbed off of the Internet.  I went to
http://cmp1.ucr.edu/exhibitions/km_collection_id.html
and snagged their pictures "Away Barbarism.." from under the "trains"
section.  I noticed that the original stereograph had several faults:
1) Spots
2) One chip higher than the other; i.e., incorrect horizontal
alignment.  This is obvious if one looks at the nails in the railroad
ties.
3) Near-infinity window, common in many old cards, but disconcerting
to those used to modern standards, and making free-viewing more
difficult.
I correct the spots by carefully painting them out, in some cases
pixel-by-pikel.
I then made each chip a separate object in Deneda Canvas, and
corrected the horizontal alignment.  In Canvas, when one object is
moved over another, it looks sort of transparent, which makes
alignment very easy.  One makes the horizontal alignment, and then,
constraining to horizontal movement, separates the cvhips again.
Then the upper and lower edges are trimmed.
Bringing the window forward can be done by trimming the outer edges
of each chip.  In Canvas one just clicks on the little square on the
boundary line and moves it inward.  I did this while free-viewing to
insure that the results were really convincing, and not just
theoretically correct.  Oh, heck--I wanted to save time!
The result can be viewed (by free-viewing) at my web site
http://alpha.fdu.edu/~boyer/PSB.html
and I would be interested in freeback from people who can compare the
two views: before, and after.
Besides, it's a neat picture: an allegory reflecting the aggressive
confidence of the late 1800s, the spirit that one the West.
--Paul S. Boyer  <boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>


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