Happy New Year!

 2024

Here's to a Productive Year!

Yes Sir!

A Productive New Year!

Dandy

Happy Holidays!

 State-of-the-Layout.

Setting up a scene to determine the best photograph that can be taken of the layout. 

And this is the result:

It's getting there. Slowly but surely it's getting there.

Yes sir- slowly but surely.

Dandy

Street Congestification

 Oh! Traffic Around this Town is getting Nuts!

Left to right: Hauler: Velociped, Berkshire Valley: Buggy,  Artitech: Ford T Runabout,  LMB Old Time Trolley. with Preiser and A.C.Stadden figures.

I'm finally getting some nice photos on the layout.

Yes sir! Finally!

Dandy

Recolorizing a Berkshire Valley Models Buggy Photo

Build a Berkshire Valley Buggy.  Take Photo of Buggy.  Decolorize Photo of Buggy.  Have AI Recolorize Photo of Buggy.

Artificial Intelligence is getting kind of smart.  I came across a site for colorizing old black and white photographs and I wondered how well it would colorize "old" photos of my layout:

Recolorized. I just finished building this Berkshire Valley Models Buggy in HO scale so I thought it would make a good subject for trying out AI colorizing.

Original Photo. This is the photo I took on the layout. It's interesting to compare it with the AI photo (top). Since I gave the ai a black & white photo (below) it had to guess the colors. It nailed the horse color. It assumed the street was concrete and colored it grey. I kind of like what it did with the brick color. It guessed the mans jacket was red rather than green. And really didn't do much with the yellows.

The black & white photo the ai had to work with. I took the original photo into Photoshop and took out the color and then uploaded the result to the MyHeritage site. And just like the old timey photo tinting studios from back in that day, it had to make educated guesses with the colors.

 

Interesting results. And I can assume this technology will only get better as time goes on.

Yes sir! The technology will only get better!

Dandy

Mirror Test

Taking photos under the overhead wires by using a mirror.

     Cameras are too big to be able to take photos from a scale persons height. So I had the idea of placing a mirror on the layout at a 45 degree angle and aiming the camera down at the mirror that I wanted to try out:

You can actually make out the bottom edge of the mirror in this photo. And since the photo was taken in a mirror, I had to flip it in a photo editing app.

    It kinda worked! I was able to get a very low POV. Not bad for a quick and dirty test. The photo is a little 'foggy', I suspect that's due to my little mirror being rather old. There is also some ghosting effects going on that is quite prominent on the forward pole of the trolley. This is due to my little mirror being a 'regular' (second surface) mirror.

The mirror set up.

    For this photo of my mirror set up, my camera was sitting on the layout. This is the lowest I can get my lens to the ground and still we are about at the roof level of the trolley looking downward. So this mirror technique seems to be viable.

    I'm encouraged by these results. So I'll order a new 'first surface' mirror that should be more clear and eliminate ghosting, and continue to experiment.

Yes sir! Continue to experiment!

Dandy