I know this has been touched upon in various other forums/topics, but I want to attempt to pull together a comprehensive "how-to" thread for us backdrop-poor modelers. This would include others like myself that lack the artistic skills to paint them and also don't seem to have enough extra money to buy some of the nice backdrop-warehouse type products. Here's the premiss: there are PC printers on the market that offer the capability to print reasonably high quality color photos onto "banner" paper. While this may not provide a suitable height for HO and larger scales, I am optomistic that a good-enough output is acheivable for N. I would like to hear from others who have pursued this, including lessons learned, etc. How do you obtain a suitable source photo? Do you stitch together panoramic shots using free-ware? What are the limits? Any/all info that you care to share would be greatly appreciated. Jack [ 20. June 2004, 01:18: Message edited by: NorsemanJack ]
Thanks. Sky/clouds wallpaper is definitely plan B. I'm still holding out hope that I can get a little scenic depth through a backdrop without spending the $$$ that backdrop warehouse items demand. My layout is only 11 inches deep (shelf), so a sky-only backdrop may not be desirable.
Jack: Paint your own backdrop. It isn't that difficult. you could also use a photo for a backdrop and reproduce it .
Went to proto location, Snapped about 100 prints with overlaps. Scanned in all 100 photos at 1200dpi. Well, actually after 20 I needed a bigger hard drive and then a third before I finished. Manipulated those .tif files into a long background. A friend in the trade show business printed them for me and they were very dark. Called in another favour and got a nice light set done. These were very glossy and I really don't have a clear plan for dulling them right now. In end these backdrops were 100% on target for the prototype location. Unfortunately there are only 3 or 4 other folks in the Atlanta area that have first hand knowledge if the Central California coast. Would I do it again? YES, but I would shoot 3000 prints and composite as I went along. The real gotcha is transporting the huge data files and compensating for the different ink saturation rates on the output device...
Jack, i haven't tried this, but... try to find a "tileable" picture of what you want your backdrop to look like...that is, it can be put together into a seamless banner. if you can't find one, then try your hand at a paint program like photoshop... its amazingly easy. lots of functions to do the simple things...like make clouds, cut and paste trees, etc. nothing fancy needed...unless you really want to work on your artistic skill . or you can try to paint a small picture on a piece of paper...and scan it in... or find a pic in a magazine that can be tiled...or cut/cropped so that it is tileable...and scan it in.... once you have the pic, then you could print out serveral and postition them together into one large backdrop. i'd also recommend looking into kinko's or the like...they can make much larger printouts...both wider and longer. just make sure that the pic is good enough quality (high-res) that it won't pixelate when blown up.
Here is a picture of a backdrop that I made using several digital photos scotchtaped together. It is possible to make it look quite good when the viewer can not see beyond the edge of the picture, but quite another thing to make the different scenes fit together well when you are standing in front of the layout where your vision is not limited.
There's probably one more tip to toss in here. For backgrounds like horizons, hills, trees - you can use ONE shot and keep 'flipping' it digitally (invert it left to right) so that the colors and edges line perfectly: Lets say left edge is A right right edge is B. First one is AB Second is BA Third is AB, fourth is BA... I never go beyond 11" and I've done up to five tiles this way. I print on a conventional inkjet, trim it out with an Xacto knife & glue to blue-painted masonite. You don't do sky. Verne Niner (Warbonnet Fan) took the shot of Mars Hill in Flagstaff and I put it behind the trees. It's pretty well buried in foreground trees now but you can see the tiling if you study it. Here's another one I did where I used one shot for the quarry, and kept the foreground cut out as a flip=flip=flip to the right. You can see the flip above the first hopper if you study it. So two tips; cut out the sky and flip the same image over and over.
Good idea. I have one panoramic view that is about 8 feet long. I hadn't thought about flipping it digitally. I may have to give it a try.
You guys have neat ideas, I wish I heard those when I did my backdrop last year.... I used this: http://www.the-gauge.com/showthread.php?t=2906 And got this:
Hi from Oz I'm trying to model C&NW in HO here in oz and I needed pictures of Chicago to do backdrop. I downloaded some pictures from Chicago tourist site then used Corel print office to size the picture to suit location on backdrop The Program automatically printed the picture out on 9 x A4 pages wide X 1 x A4 high allowing for overlap of about 1inch . Unfortunatly my printer doesn,t do banners ,so I placed edges facing away from me . Also used cloud wallpaper behind picture and lightly misted white over whole lot to give haze. Hope this helps Regards Les
One question about using the digital photo's - do you just take the photo of your scenery and print it up, or do you worry about resizing it to the proper scale? For scenic shots this wouldn't matter, but for that shot with the buildings in the background - how did you get it to be 1:160? Just luck? It looks great.
I didn't use photos, but I did this on the cheap. A thread on how I went about it is here. http://www.railroadforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6912
Well I'll be....I never thought of using digital photos. I especially like the idea of flipping a few photos back and forth to make a continuous and matching backdrop. Now I'll just have to hop on up to old B&M country for some scenery photos. I wonder if my accountant/roomate would mind...?
Thanks for link Hemi. You've done a super job with your backdrop. I've wanted to try painting some clouds onto my "blue sky" but have been afraid to mess up my backdrops. I've already painted some mountains and rolling hills that look OK from a distance, but need to add some texture to the sky. Even here in the arid southwest we get clouds.
I use digital photos extensively. My printer can handle 13 x 44 prints. I usually shoot 5 or 6 shots and stitch them together with Photoshop. I use a tripod, making sure it's level and that I overlap each image. I get best results with a DSLR with a lens of abouit 24mm (35mm equivalent on an SLR). When I use a wider lens--say a 12mm--I get too much distortion, although that lens would cover 180 degrees in two shots. Stitching things manually is not too difficult, and I think the results are better than the auto stitchers because I can correct for discrepancies at the stitches using corrections of barrel and pincushion. These are not really lens defects, but simply the fact that the edges of an image are further away than the center. It's usually a very minor correction, and some won't even notice the effect. I usually print to glossy photo paper (13 x 19 "Super B" sheets)--the roll paper and the heavy matte paper are usually out of stock, even direct from Epson. Besides, printing on the roll paper is risky--you basically need a new set of cartridges before you begin, which runs about $90. Super B sheets run about $2.50 each. I use Adobe InDesign to tile an image for printing--usually with 1/4-inch overlap. I trim according to the crop marks with an exacto. I mount the photo paper onto 1/4-inch foam core, which I buy in 4 x 8 sheets (about $10). I eliminate the gloss with dullcoat or a satin clear finish--it takes about 5 light coats. I've printed on thinner, cheaper paper and didn't like the results--the colors were deep enough. It's a whole lot cheaper though--about $0.25 for the sheet of paper, and a lot less ink. I've also had panoramas commercially printed--at about $8 a square foot, mounted on foam core.
Other factors are cost and time. For cost, let's look at an 8 foot by one foot panorama. My commercial digital printer will charge me about $64 for this, and it will be seamless. My costs for doing it on my own, with four seams, are about $12.50 for five sheets of paper, and about $30 for ink. That's $42.50. Plus $2.50 for the foam core. That's $45.00. I figure at least one page will screw up in the printing. That's another $7.50. So I'm at $52.50. Plus spray adhesive and dullcoat. And then I have to trim it and mount it. And then there's the seams. Here are some results. This is on so-called "photo" paper, which is just plain paper with a light coating--not photo glossy paper. I've airbrushed out the seams. The jpg used here would not "hold" the highlights, so the sky looks washed out. Here's a commercially printed one, which is "flopped" at the corner (and also manipulated to look a little different): Pete: I edited to see the pics. [ July 10, 2005, 10:26 PM: Message edited by: sapacif ]
