Last of the Box Saloons - going cheap before the new range comes in

[Tony Griffiths]

Light Car Magazine Cover

[Hugh Barnes]

What a terrible image! The artists Austin used were usually much better than that. This has terrible perspective..

[Tony Griffiths]

What a terrible image! The artists Austin used were usually much better than that. This has terrible perspective..

Hi Hugh, The terrible perspective is caused by the original image being a photograph that tapered from bottom to top as well as being angled. The photograph has been "corrected" using Photoshop, but it can only do so much - although if one is willing to spend hours on the job, it can be made better. I do have one or two of the original covers (all in less-than-perfect condition) and, in the fullness of time, I'll put those up fully cleaned. If I'm good enough at the job, they should be virtually indistinguishable from the originals when new.
Here's just the car mostly corrected and, below it, the prototype 6-cylinder version; sadly, never to be produced:

[Bob Culver]

Whatever, it is a rather odd picture, exaggerating the already very large door.  It seems unlikely entry was a major contention.
most cars of the time easie rto enter than many of the low popular cars of the 1960s/70s.

[Jeff Taylor]

Hi Tony,

I'd be interested to know what make / size of scanner you're using for these wonderful old images you're posting, albeit the above original being a photograph of the magazine cover.

Cheers,
Jeff.

[Tony Griffiths]

Hi Tony,

I'd be interested to know what make / size of scanner you're using for these wonderful old images you're posting, albeit the above original being a photograph of the magazine cover.

Cheers,
Jeff.

Hi Jeff,
Unfortunately, I'm not scanning them - some are pinched from ebay so pretty low resolution and consequently hard to play with. The various catalogue pictures are from the A7CA Archive - and even these are only at 300 d.p.i. so far from ideal.
For my own work I use an A4 Epson Perfection V850 Pro, intended for negative work, that will scan up to 12800 d.p.i. optical. However, it's often not necessary to go beyond 800 d.p.i. on most jobs. Here's a decent scan: Ruby-forum-display.jpg and even higher: https://www.lathes.uk/Ruby-download.jpg (on a slow connection that might take some time to download). I also have an A3 scanner, but that only goes to 600 d.p.i. A3 ones beyond that are expensive!
Here are two before and after images from an ebay listing (click on the image for a larger picture):

[Archivist]

Just following up on Tony's comment about the 300dpi standard the Archive has adopted as being far from ideal. I would like to dispel any thoughts amongst Forumists that the Archive web site is not up to scratch. This was a standard that we took professional advice over when we started the project and is the standard that is used by our contractors (Hampshire County Council) in their photography process. It is also the settings we adopt for the A3 Epson Expression XL10000 scanner that we use for the work we do ourselves. This scanner has a maximum resolution of 2,400 DPI x 4,800 DPI (Horizontal x Vertical). 300dpi is sufficient for our purposes and image quality does not degrade when the image is blown up on screen.

For other purposes, a higher resolution may be required, but not for the work we are doing...

[Tony Griffiths]

Just following up on Tony's comment about the 300dpi standard the Archive has adopted as being far from ideal. I would like to dispel any thoughts amongst Forumists that the Archive web site is not up to scratch. This was a standard that we took professional advice over when we started the project and is the standard that is used by our contractors (Hampshire County Council) in their photography process. It is also the settings we adopt for the A3 Epson Expression XL10000 scanner that we use for the work we do ourselves. This scanner has a maximum resolution of 2,400 DPI x 4,800 DPI (Horizontal x Vertical). 300dpi is sufficient for our purposes and image quality does not degrade when the image is blown up on screen.

For other purposes, a higher resolution may be required, but not for the work we are doing...

I agree, for your work and the online display of literature, it's perfectly satisfactory. The comment was not meant as a criticism of your decision to use 300 d.p.i. , but merely that it's not as useful as higher resolutions are for any post-scanning cleaning up. You are all doing a wonderful job digitising the material and making it freely available.

[Hedd_Jones]

I use the Gimp