The Trojan Warhorse

[Greebo]

Looking at the shadow on the ground the sun is almost directly above the aircraft, just slightly to the rear. I'd also say that the canopy, horse and vertical tail are all painted in the same colour. While the vertical tail is in shadow the canopy frame and top of the horse are not and they still look bluish-green to me.

I can't find any reference to a USAAF colour called Medium Blue, does anyone have any information on it? I did consider USAAF Light blue (also known as True Blue) for this skin but it seemed too light to be the colour in the photo.

[Vraciu]

I thought the horse was blue myself.    More blue than green any way. 

[Vraciu]

Looking at your skin again I would say you hit the color in the photo pretty well, the only question being how the lighting and film altered it.   

[oboe]

Looking at the shadow on the ground the sun is almost directly above the aircraft, just slightly to the rear. I'd also say that the canopy, horse and vertical tail are all painted in the same colour. While the vertical tail is in shadow the canopy frame and top of the horse are not and they still look bluish-green to me.

I can't find any reference to a USAAF colour called Medium Blue, does anyone have any information on it? I did consider USAAF Light blue (also known as True Blue) for this skin but it seemed too light to be the colour in the photo.

I agree the horse profile, canopy trim, and tail are all probably the same color.   As Vraciu points out, the effects of the lighting and age of film must have some effect on the color we're seeing.  (Does color film "yellow" with age?   And could a yellowing of the blue produce the greenish-blue shade we're seeing?)
 
I couldn't find a Medium Blue anywhere either, although I think most people would see ANA 501 as a medium blue (despite it being referred to as Lt Blue).   I have a couple of websites I try to reference when I am unsure of colors.
The first has an image of ANA Color Cards, and luckily ANA 501 is the top card.   This is the darkest version of ANA 501 I have seen:

https://www.aircorpsart.com/blog/WWII-color-codes/




Another website with a more complete ANA listing is this one:  https://www.cybermodeler.com/color/ana_matrix.shtml

I made this color chart with info from that site:

[Greebo]

I have been experimenting with the colour balance tool in PSP, reducing the amount of green in the photos by enough to make the green/blue colour look like Light Blue. However this gave the rest of the photo an unrealistic red tint. So I am not convinced the colour balance of the photo is wrong, or at least not by enough for Light Blue to be a better fit than Sea Green.  If a better photo turns up I'll reconsider but otherwise I will leave the colour it as it is.

[oboe]

I have been experimenting with the colour balance tool in PSP, reducing the amount of green in the photos by enough to make the green/blue colour look like Light Blue. However this gave the rest of the photo an unrealistic red tint. So I am not convinced the colour balance of the photo is wrong, or at least not by enough for Light Blue to be a better fit than Sea Green.  If a better photo turns up I'll reconsider but otherwise I will leave the colour it as it is.

Fair enough, but from my research into restoring old color film, I don't think adjusting the green tint of the entire photo is accurate.   The cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes that are used to record the color in old movie film decay at different rates.   So to be fair, you might need to rebalance each channel for specific areas of the image until you get an accurate looking result.




 

[oboe]

I tried playing with one of the old color photos in Photoshop.  I assume the grass is greener, and appears yellow/brown in the photo due to the effects of film aging.  I increased Saturation, increased Contrast, decreased Brightness to compensate for overexposure.   Then I shifted the color balance of the photo on the Yellow-Blue spectrum slider, increasing blue while decreasing yellow - all the while aiming for realistic green grass.

Top photo is the original, the bottom is my changes.  The sea green on the tail has diminished, and the tail has taken on a more blue hue  - and this is with the tail in shadow - if it had been illuminated I'm sure the blue would be lighter/brighter.  I don't see an unrealistic red cast to the bottom photo; in fact I think there is less red now, looking at the taxiway.

[lyric1]

I have a couple of books on the 79th fighter group that I ordered a few days ago. They should arrive in a few days. Maybe they have some more images in them.

[Vraciu]

You guys amaze me.

(Devil does below, too.)

[Devil 505]

I tried playing with one of the old color photos in Photoshop.  I assume the grass is greener, and appears yellow/brown in the photo due to the effects of film aging.  I increased Saturation, increased Contrast, decreased Brightness to compensate for overexposure.   Then I shifted the color balance of the photo on the Yellow-Blue spectrum slider, increasing blue while decreasing yellow - all the while aiming for realistic green grass.

Top photo is the original, the bottom is my changes.  The sea green on the tail has diminished, and the tail has taken on a more blue hue  - and this is with the tail in shadow - if it had been illuminated I'm sure the blue would be lighter/brighter.  I don't see an unrealistic red cast to the bottom photo; in fact I think there is less red now, looking at the taxiway.

(Image removed from quote.)

Oboe, I don't think you're on the right track.

1. This photo was taken in southern Italy. The grass will could easily be yellow/brown.

2. Look that the shading and the stars in the insignia on the fuselage  in your doctored photo. They've turned purple. Pretty clear to me that the adjustments you made are not the right ones based on that.

[Vraciu]

Different unit but similar color....


Too bad you can’t find this video:

[oboe]

Yes my attempt was ham-handed to be sure.  I also noticed the green grass visible under the right wing of the C47.  If age-related yellowing turned the green grass brown, why is that grass green?

Hopefully Lyric's new books will have some answers.

If I stare long enough at the original photo, I can pretty easily imagine that it is desaturated, yellowed True Blue in the shade.  And that would match the documentation of a medium-blue on the tails.   

 

[lyric1]

Noticed a few profiles online that seem to have a green/blue tail as well.

[Greebo]

Thanks for everyone's input into this, I'm still open to changing the colour if better info is found. The written reference to medium blue reads more like a vague description than a specific colour. It could be true blue/light blue or sea green, which is actually more of a blue/green colour. The steel planked runway on Oboe's colour shifted photo looks too purple to my eyes and like Devil says, the grass could easily be brown in patches.

I don't trust profiles/models/paintings for things like this. I've just seen too many examples over the years where each artist has used previous artists' work as their only reference and so transferred their mistakes over too. Thanks for ordering those books Lyric1, with any luck there will be a better colour photo in one of them.

[lyric1]

Found another colour image of it on Facebook.



Black and white one with it.