Bentley Book Photo Technique

[Daverham]

Does anyone have any idea what is the photography/processing technique was used in the Bentley repair book (and likely many others)?

The images are very strange to me. Very good! Clear, contrasty, east to see what's what.... but they also have a sort of artificial air-brushed look to them. They are extra silky smooth, don't you think? Studio lighting plus artistically re-touched for clarity? They are almost illustrations...


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78 Kombi, 65 Bug, 69 Baja Bug, 63 Camper Van, 66 Bug, 72 Bug, 60 Ghia

[notchback]

Stanagon should be able to answer all your questions about that.
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Brain Trust member #13

Sad, unnecessary & cruel.

Let's quit sending money to the middle east and let them hate us for free.

[coad]

[Daverham]

I'm familiar with large format... that would make sense that it's easier for a retoucher to paint on the negative after processing. You think that's what happened here? You know that, or just a theory?
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78 Kombi, 65 Bug, 69 Baja Bug, 63 Camper Van, 66 Bug, 72 Bug, 60 Ghia

[busdaddy]

I suspect there was alot of retouching done as well, it's more obvious in many Japanese manuals of the same vintage.
The pics that make me go Hmmm..... are the ones where all the tin or suspension arms that you know are black on the car are light colored in the pics yet the surrounding body looks normal, custom painted vehicle or photo magic?
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Rust NEVER sleeps and stock never goes out of style.

Wanted, 68-73 westy OG plaid curtains, singles OK.

[mondshine]

I did large format industrial photography for over 30 years.
The detail (resolution) from an 8x10 negative or transparency is a quantum leap above even the best digital images seen today.
The problem is cost. Between the high price of silver (therefore of photographic materials) the high cost of processing that film (including the cost of proper disposal of highly poisonous chemicals) is prohibitive in the modern world.
The retouching you see was done with an airbrush. The artist would glue tracing paper to a print, cut out the "frisket" with an exacto knife, and remove the "mask" from the area to be worked. Then, he (she) would use an airbrush to spray paints or dyes to "click up" the print. As you can imagine, this kind of work requires a lot of skill and time. Another important point is that there is no "command Z" (control Z for dummies). 40 hours of work can be laid waste by a sneeze or a spilled cup of coffee. Yea...those were the good old days!
It might just be a coincidence, but all of the best retouchers were big time alcoholics.

Drawings like this were done with pen and ink! Try it sometime!


As a side note, Detroit was once the mecca for this kind of work. All car photography; brochures, manuals, parts catalogs and related post production work was done here back in the day.
Industrial films for training, sales promotion, etc. were shot and processed here in Detroit. There were years that more cine (movie) film was processed here in Detroit than in L.A.

All of this has gone the way of the buggy whip.

[EverettB]

[KTPhil]

And it's not just the resolution, but the tonal depth that makes the old large format negatives so beautiful. The fine grain, slow speed films like Panatomic-X also had fantastic dynamic range... modern cameras are limited by their D-A converters.

However, the latest HDR and large format digital cameras are getting incredibly good, especially for the fraction of the labor needed to produce results (and the "undo" function!). Ansel Adam's Zone System can teach us a lot, but the analogous digital processes are now so easy we take them for granted and lose sight of why we have them.

My hands are still rough from dipping my skin into developer, stop bath, fixer, etc from decades of darkroom work. But I miss the craft, and the beautiful results from film and paper.

VW retouched and reused photographs for all its manuals (workshop and owner), and did a fine job of it. Just try it yourself with normal lighting and you will appreciate how well they did.