Archive for the ‘Photoshop’ Category
Colorizing Black and White Images …
This image is an uncropped scan of a glass negative that I have. As usual, I have no clue who the children are or where this photo was taken or the year. Next image is the cropped image.
Here is my first version of the image after I cropped the image and then worked it up in Photoshop. I flipped the image before I started coloring the image …
There still are a lot of areas that I need to improve and I plan on doing some more in the future. I plan on colorizing a few of my father’s old photos, especially the one of the old San Carlos Hotel in downtown Pensacola, but that will is going to take some time to do. The cars, people and details of the building will have to be done individually and those will take time. The next image that I am doing is another glass plate that I have scanned of an unknown baseball team from back in the early 1900’s. Thanks for looking. As I have mentioned before, most of my posts are to my Instagram account so please go and check it out – @frankhardyphoto I believe is how I have it listed. If not, just search Frank Hardy Photography and my account will pop up. Thanks again for taking time to look and please feel free to comment and ask questions.
Miscellaneous Photos from the 1950’s …
Here are a few random photos from the 1950’s that I have not posted anywhere yet. They are from other groups or sets that I have posted somewhere – on my blogs or Instagram – but have never posted these exact ones. I will try to add what little I do know about each photo, so if anyone has anything to offer or remember being around when the image was taken, please feel free to jump on in and comment. Here we go …
This photo and the next are from the Fiesta of Five Flags Parade from 1955. I am sure this that the sponsor of this float was Coca-Cola, but I do not know who any of the people on the float are or what the theme of the float. Other than that is one huge Coke bottle! The buildings in the background are what draws my attention … the old San Carlos Hotel, the A&P Grocery Store on the left side of the frame and then the miscellaneous businesses in the buildings on the right. The photograph / scan is from a 4×5 negative, so you can read all the names of the businesses on the building. I just can not put that large of a file up on my blog for you read. Next …
This photo shows the Davy Crockett Foods push cart in the same parade. I guess that ol’ Davy had not sold enough “BearBurgers” or “CoonDogs” to justify springing for a parade float, so they opted for a push-cart that resembles an ocean liner. Or that is what it looks like to me. I like the little boys in the background following along with fishing poles trying to snag a bearburger or a coondog. Also, how about those to urchins that climbed up on the building above the Acme Stores sign for a better look? I wonder if this Acme Store sells the same Acme anvil that always flattens Willey Coyote in the cartoons? You have to have grown up in the fifties and watched cartoons on a b&w tv, kiddies, to get that reference. Next up is a celebrity photo …
This, boys and girls, is Denise Darnell, who stared in the classic 1950’s movie, The Strip Tease Murder Case. On my favorite app, IMDb, a fan – the only one posted, by the way – claimed that this movie is his nomination for ” Worst Movie Ever Made “. I won’t boar you with the rest of the revenue, you can go look it up yourself and read what John Howard Reid has to say in his post. In fact, I do not know why I even bothered to mention his name, since his review is the only one! One more interesting tidbit … the advertising poster claims that Denise Darnell is ” 6’7″ of Amazon Beauty “. And to be perfectly honest, this poster might be the best thing about the movie! But for those interested, you can go search for it yourself. Ms Darnell shows up in several of the photos that my father made and for some reason, I want to say that she might have been the “chaperone” for this group of celebrities that included Doc and Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke and Michael Ansara who played Cochise in the tv show ” Broken Arrow ” from the 1950’s. I only use the word chaperone very loosely, because I could not think of a better word / term – tour guide did not really seem appropriate. I am hoping that someone out there might remember seeing Ms Darnell here in Pensacola and will make a comment. I am not really holding my breath on any comments for The Strip Tease Murder Case, but who knows, all we can do is wait and see.
That does it for me. I am sorry that I missed posting something in December and that made the first month that I missed making a monthly post in years. I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season in 2016. We got to travel to Seattle to spend time with Lauren, Lukas and Travis, whom we had not seen since Christmas before last in Southern California. I have posted some photos from this years trip over on my personal blog, Frank Hardy Photo Blog .
Thanks for looking and please comment regardless whether you know something or not … I just like hearing from you. I know that people are looking because I see the stats, it just does not tell me whom, but I do know where. Also, don’t forget that I post fairly regularly on my Instagram account: @frankphardy .
That’s all Doc … ( one more feeble reference to 1950’s b&w cartoons that I grew up on ).
Pensacola Pier ….
I ran across this negative years ago and just set it aside. Someone had brought me this print to copy back in the 1980’s and I made me an extra copy. This is the end of Palafox Street and I want to say that this is taken in the 1930’s. The strip of land on the back side would be where the Port Royal Development is built today. No idea who took the photo, but if anyone has any information on this image, please feel free to comment and share anything that you might know. Thanks for looking and please check back. One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2017 is to try and post several times a month. I have been busy with other ways to share my photography ( Instagram is the main one ) and have sort of ignored my two blogs. But no worry, I still have thousands of images to work through and post, so don’t give up on me yet.
Some New Images Purchased Off Of Ebay …
I posted this image over on my Instagram site and a lady identified this scene as the clock tower in Bern Switzerland. She goes by ” TrueColorChrome ” on Instagram and her specialty is colorizing black and white images. Here is a link to her web site and she is truly an artist. The work she does is amazing and people do not realize how time consuming the process is. She was also the one that located the city and country that this was taken. It was one of three negatives that I purchased from an individual on Ebay, of which two of the images I have already posted ( the market / street scene post one or two posts back ) . The next several photographs were taken in Paris before WW II…
The photographs were taken on Rue Royale in Paris. From what I been able to assume from looking on Google Maps and some other sources, the photographer might have been standing in the middle of Rue Royale and took the first photograph. Then he turned 180 degrees and took the second photograph. I was able to enlarge a sign on the right hand side of the image which read “Chrisofle”. This business is located on Rue Royale and here is a link to the Chrisofle web site ( it sells silverware ) and a map showing it’s present day location. I did run across a photo of this Rue Royale taken after WW II and the building across the street from this business had been completely destroyed. And the amazing thing to me was that the building at the end of this street was not bombed by the Nazi air raid. Now I doubt that the Nazi raid did not do this on purpose, because it is widely known that it did not bother Hitler if important buildings, museums, etc were destroyed or not. There is nothing special about either image other that the fact that they were pre-WWII and the seller was not asking much for them. I am surprised what seller’s are asking on Ebay for some unknown individual’s personal photos. I have seen amateur’s negatives going for thousands of dollars and they are nothing more than just random views of nothing … I have always said ” Just because it is old, does not make it gold ” .
That is it for now … If anyone has ever been on the above streets in Bern Switzerland or Paris France ( not Kentucky or Texas ) and would like to comment, please feel free. My Instagram account gets me way more views that my blogs have ever received and it is easier to access. So please feel free to see what I post on it and to leave a comment. Thanks again for looking and I am going to try to get back in the habit of posting more frequently in the future. For now … stay safe.
Unknown Negatives …
A while back on a post, I mentioned that if anyone had any negatives that they did not want to let me know. I talked to several people and the negatives they had, had that either been passed down from family members or they had acquired some other way … flea market find, garage sale find, etc, etc. Most all were just family snapshots, backyard picnics and vacation candid photos. Not exactly what I was looking for, so I did what any other red-blooded American would do … I went on Ebay and bought some. To me, almost all of the negatives that are posted for sale, fit into that category of family snapshots, backyard picnics and vacation travels. Knowing that I should have been more specific, I was not exactly sure of what it was that I was looking for until I ran across the negatives that I am putting up in this post … images showing everyday randomness from the 1930’s to the sixties. Now, the images do not have to show only America, but anywhere in the world … Europe, Asia, China, Africa. So, I purchased these negatives, scanned them and worked them up in Photoshop. They were in fairly good shape, requiring not much computer time to remove scratches, marks, stains, etc. And as usual, I know nothing at all about them other than the obvious – taken in the 1930’s or 40’s and somewhere in Europe. The location could be Germany or some place that speaks German judging by the words / lettering in the photos. There were three negative and I have worked up two. So here they are …
The first image is an overall view of the market and since the people look clean and well fed, I would say that it is pre-WWII. The second showing a meat market / stall looks as if there might be some type of rationing going on since there is not a wide variety of meat or sausages for sale. If anyone recognizes where this area is, please feel free to comment and share what you know with us. I have one more negative from this purchase that I will post once I get it cleaned up and ready. The last photo is really the reason that I purchased these three negatives and besides the fact that they were less than ten dollars. One problem that you find is that everyone thinks that what they have is more valuable than what it actually is … just because it is old, does not mean it is gold ( that is my own phrase ). There are some negatives on Ebay now where the sellers want tens of thousands of dollars for their negatives!
So, if anyone come across any negatives that fit the criteria that I mentioned earlier, before you throw them away, think of me. And, if anyone recognizes anything in these two images which would help me locate the place or the time frame of them, please let me hear from you. Thanks again for looking and I hope everyone had a safe new year … Frank
Another One From The Port of Pensacola …
This is one taken in a warehouse down at the Port of Pensacola from back in the 1950’s, maybe around 1955. I had posted another one like it with another man bending over loading a sack with this nitrate in the photo, but I removed him in this image. I have always thought that this photo had an interesting look to it. I ran it through the Lucis Art filter in Photoshop to add some contrast to an otherwise “flat” image. Thanks for looking and please check back … Frank
Boy Blowing Bubbles in the Backseat …
Ok, Ok … I made a mistake on the last ” Boy Blowing Bubbles ” image and I did scan it backwards. I thought that it was sort of interesting that someone was driving an auto brought over from England since the steering wheel was located on the right side. However, after Rusty noticed it and said that the image was backward, I went back and rescanned it correctly and worked it up. I also did another negative that was in the envelope that I did not bother working up and posting earlier. The detail in the car’s body is more interesting than the bubbles that the boy is blowing, which do not really show up all that well. The car is parked on DeSoto Street in front of the offices on the side. My father’s first studio was located here before he moved across the street to 12th Avenue, so this was made in the late 1940’s. Next is another view straight on of the boy blowing bubbles and you see the north side of the old Sacred Heart Hospital in the background …
I do not know the make or model of the automobile, but it looks like it is brand new or it had just been washed and waxed. As mentioned in the earlier post, I have no idea who this boy is but some of you out there might recognize the boy. Thanks for looking and keeping me straight … if you ever notice a glaring mistake like I had made earlier, please let me know … Frank
Nurses At Sacred Heart Hospital In The 1940’s …
Staying in the 1940’s, I scanned some prints that my father had made at the old Sacred Heart Hospital. The three that I am posting are ones that I just scanned in the past several days … mostly because they did not require too much Photoshop work to get ready to put up on this site. This first one has always been interesting to me and for some reason or another I have just never gotten around to scan it. The next is a group of nurses on the steps out front of the hospital …
Note all of the ivy on the walls out front of the hospital and also notice the round globe lights … I do not think that I have seen these before, maybe I have but I just do not recall at the moment. The last one is of the nurses in the nursery with a newborn …
Notice the ” S C ” on the nurses pocket that stands for ” Sister’s of Charity “, the order that ran the hospital. I wish I had more information to share with you about these images, but maybe someone out there might recognize some of the nurses in these photos and know something to share with us. I will say that these images from the 1940’s and earlier are all prints that I scan … that accounts for the color of the images, which I think is interesting. I could take the color out in Photoshop, but for some reason I like the color and tone of the images. I will not necessarily that they have aged this color as much as I believe some where printed on a ” warm ” tone paper. The images that are more black and white might have been printed on a ” cold ” tone paper. Thanks for looking and if you know anything about any of these images, please feel free to comment. Thanks for looking … Frank
Re-Worked Images …
No … I have not been in jail … or the hospital … or have I died …. I have just been busy with other things over the past few weeks and have not been posting any images recently. One thing that I have been working on lately is re-working some of my images and putting a textured overlay on them. I am surprised at how much you can change the look and feel of an image by just adding some texture in Photoshop. The ” old-school ” way was to do it in printing on textured paper, but you were also very limited by the few printing papers that you could select or by running the finished print through a texture-creating machine. I have been doing some reading and found a technique that I that would be interesting and am starting to create some new images from old images. The image above of Pensacola Bay around 1950 is an image that I thought would lend itself well to texturing and I think that it succeeded. Also, a gift to my viewers, this image is an 8×10 full resolution sized file. So if you want to down-load the file ( right click and Save as … ) you can make a print to keep. Just call it an early Christmas gift. Most of all of the other images on this blog are sized for the web for easy loading and viewing … nothing bothers me more than having to wait minutes for images to load because the photographer was not considerate enough to resize the image or images. As usual, all comments are appreciated and welcomed. Please check back, because I forgot to mention that I have been doing some scanning a lot of new negatives. Thanks and please check back … Frank
Personal Composite Over At Frank Hardy Photo Blog …
This is a little self-publicizing on my part … I have been working for the past several weeks on some composites of my photography and I am creating one for this site. My problem is trying to figure out how to create a composite with several hundred images. I am embarrassed to say how many hours I spent working on the one above and I do not think that I have 60 images on it ! It is a lot harder than it looks and I am not at a point where I have everything sized the same and all lines parallel and perpendicular. But putting it on a black background helped cover up a lot of mistakes and errors. I think that most people that come to this site know who I am and know my background, but I seem to be getting new viewers as time goes by and most are not from this area of the Panhandle of Florida. So most are not familiar with my own personal work. Here is a link to my site : FrankHardyPhotoBlog.com
Thanks for looking and for all of the viewers that are new, thanks for taking the time to look and view this site. Go over and see what I do personally and if I can ever be of service, please reach me through either site. I very seldom use Facebook …. I still have not been able figure it out … Too many things that I do not like: the ads, the layout, the size of your image / images, I could keep on going, but I am going to stop there. Sometime next year I plan on trying to work it in with both of these blogs, since I know I could reach more people and make more contacts. For now … Stay out of trouble and have a Happy New Year … Frank
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
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