exactly recreated prototype scene for backdrop

Ray, I used GIMP (free open source program similar to PhotoShop) to exactly recreate (for the NEB&W) the 1950s view behind the E. Shoreham, VT covered bridge working with a low resolution copy of a period B&W photo by John Gardner. The finished artwork was printed by Joey Ricard, Trackside Scenery. It was 72 inches long x 14 inches tall and looked good at 100 dpi which kept the file size managable on my computer. The club was very pleased with the backdrop.

That was the first time I attempted something like that. There was a leaning curve, but the results were better than anything else we could do to recreate a prototype view long lost to time.

Here's Gardner's original photo: 

Here's the full color version. It is not a colorized version of the original photo.  

There is an article in the March 2020 issue of RMC describing how the backdrop was created. If you find that useful and have any questions, please contact me via this forum. Bill Gill

re: GIMP

"There was a learning curve..."

HA HA HA HA ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA ha ha ha ha ha ha...."

I've used GIMP for years...  "There was a learning curve" is probably the biggest understatement you could make... and it's true of ALL photo-editing software.

Great job, though. Not seeing any artifacts around likely cut and paste edges. Would love to see a photo of the background on the layout with the model bridge in place.

  "Here's the full color

Is there some reason you didn't start with the original and crop out the things you didn't want? Seems you could have gotten a better match for the trees and terrain? .....DaveB

barr-ceo

Yeah, ok, the learning curve was sort of a rollercoaster at times...but it also partly depends on how you think...artists think differently than, say engineers. And everyone thinks differently than the  computers guys who program the features and tools. I mostly taught myself how to use GIMP by experimenting and messing up a lot of pixels in the process. I've also used GIMP for quite awhile and am amazed at what can be done. There are still many features I haven't worked with.

You asked about a photo of the backdrop on the layout. Unfortunately that hasn't happened yet as the NEB&W was dismantled and put in temporary storage before the backdrop could get mounted in place. However, one quick SNAPSHOT of the first NEB&W train to cross the E. Shoreham bridge was quickly posed. A few available trees were stuck by the bridge and one photo taken by a club member. I then GIMPed the backdrop into that photo. That's the best I can offer at present.

Here's photo of the last train to cross the bridge. I think that was 1954: 

Here's a B&W version of the NEB&W SNAPSHOT quickly staged to roughly approximate the same view: 

And here's the color version of the model: 

Dave B. trees and terrain matching

The original John Gardner B&W photo of the view was used as a template to recreate the scene on top of. The bridge and trees close to the bridge were removed from the photo, leaving parts of the field and the distant treelines in the background. The backdrop would have been mounted on the wall about 2 feet behind the covered bridge, so parts of the field and foreground trees were going to be modelled. The remaining background details were recreated exactly using a number of other photos of the bridge in the club's archives as reference. For comparison look at this photo below. (The individual nearer tree at the right end was later removed and isn't in the final version above.) 

In this photo the B&W original treelines were moved to the top layer and then dragged up into the sky above the color backdrop just for ease of comparing. This original backdrop was 4 ft long, but shortly after it was assembled the club decided that extending the scene another 2 ft would work better. Compare the photo directly above with the first color image of the backdrop in the first post and you can see what was added to fill two more feet on the right side of the image. That area was more work because although I had access to multiple photos of the scene taken at different seasons and times, none exactly matched Gardner's original camera location and view. I worked with Google Earth images and topographical maps to get as close of a rendition as I could. If you have access to the article in the March 2020 RMC you can get a more complete description of how the backdrop was done.

Unfortunately at the time the snapshot was taken in the middle of packing up the layout's structures, the only 3D trees readily available weren't the ones that were going to be made to match the ones near the bridge, so they don't match as closely as planned in the model snapshot. At least, there is a photo.

Speaking of plans, at first club members expected the backdrop would simply be a matter of driving up to the bridge (It's been restored as part of a hike & bike trail) and shooting a panoramic shot from at or near Gardner's original location. That idea vanished when they arrived and realized how much the trees had filled in during the intervening 60 odd years since the original Gardner shot. Hence, the GIMP project

  "you can see what was

I've found that compromise is always needed due to one's viewpoint changing as they walk down the aisle. The aisle view doesn't end up with the same perspective as the protoype view would have in each position along the aisle. It seems like the best way to handle it is to try and establish the various aisle viewpoints then blend in the space between them in some generic manner? ....DaveB

Thanks all

Thanks guys

backdrop view angles

Dave, You're right, very often a backdrop, other than plain blue sky, looks wrong except from some limited viewing position. In some cases that position can be controlled by various view blocks.

There isn't a good photo to show how the bridge scene would have been set up on the NEB&W, but on the left side there would have been a dense cluster of trees spanning from the far side of the track to the backdrop and on the right end there were a depot and several small farm buildings (some of the farm buildings were N scale for forced perspective). That limited the view of the backdrop which also represented a distant enough line of trees so that they looked good no matter where the viewer stood.

I've seen really good  backdrops with view angles controlled by a street running perpendicular to the backdrop with the buildings on each side restricting the angle to a narrow view down the center. This backdrop was similar, just with a wider view and a nebulous enough image that the actual perspective was nearly impossible to perceive.

Ray, does any of this help you with your backdrop project and questions about faded and distorted images?

You mentioned the "faded" look of many commercial backdrops. That can be a big problem. I don't have enough experience with commercial backdrops to recommend ones that don't have  an unsaturated color apearance. As mentioned in the first reply, the E. Shoreham backdrop printed by Trackside Scenery came out well for the location it was going to be used in.

A related problem is the types of ink used to print the backdrop. If not archival inks, the backdrop can actually rapidly fade, especially if you have fluorescent lighting. The substrate the image is printed on can also really affect its appearance. Glossy or matte papers, adhesive backed vinyl and other materials produce more or less saturated looking images and may or may not have a visible texture. Protective films or sprays applied over the image can also affect the appearance. The same problems apply to models printed on cardstock. The best thing is get a variety of samples of images printed on different substrates from the printers you are considering. Tape them to the wall and look at them under the actual layout lighting. Do they look faded? Can you blend their colors seamlessly into the surrounding 3D scenery stuff? Is it more important to have a backdrop that looks best in person or in photos?

If you look at the photos of the photo backdrops on Mike Canfalone's Allagash Railroad, they look good. Can you contact him to findout how and where he got them printed?

The most reasonable backdrop printer i have found is

Bill prusso at william@trainjunkies.com

Hanging backdrops- lessons learned

Some sites recommend just spray a glue on and put them up. Don’t. After a few years the backdrop material will move and the backdrop will look bad.  It happened to me. I showed the photos here and Mike Confalone described how he did it. Maybe you can find it on this site. 
 

Believe  it or not he takes lots of little pieces of blue painters tape and folds them over and puts them on the backdrop . It works 

Bill   Thanks Mike and my

Bill   Thanks

Mike and my son, Neil are  friends and the attached photo was shot by Neil   and stitched togeher by Mike and is on the club layout.(Providence Northern) It looks good IMHO  It was printed by LARC.. We  are tryingtofind something  similar, but  not  use this again

Ray:

Take a look at what Trackside Scenery offers, you might find or be able to customize one view to meet your needs. (I have no connection other than having the custom backdrop I created printed by Trackside Scenery). Here's a link to the site.

https://tracksidescenery.com/

They have a good variety of scenes and most (maybe all?) can be further customized with the addition of roads, rivers, buildings and other things. There are also views of a part of the background with scale loco in front for sense of proportion.

Blue Tape quality?

BTW I have found a little difference in the quality of several different blue painters tape,   latest purchase does NOT seem to have the same adhesive power. I think it was purchased at harbor freight?

Photo backdrops

You could have a look at this site.

https://flic.kr/go/kCt1C

Michael Tolich