There’s a very good article in the July 2010 MR titled “Models as Backdrops,” where the author uses photos of model buildings to create a 15-foot-long custom backdrop for a portion of Model Railroader’s HO club layout. And it got me to thinking …
What if forum members contributed photos to establish a “public library” of structure images that we could all borrow from to create our own custom backdrops? The scale of contributions wouldn’t matter, since digital images are easily re-sized. So an image of your O scale warehouse could easily be re-sized to fit on my N scale backdrop, and vice versa.
The only potential problem that comes to mind involves copyright protection for kits or pre-assembled structures, but I wonder if that would apply here. It’s not as if you’re duplicating the product; you’re only producing an image of the product. But that might be a question for any legal eagles lurking about the forum.
And even if kits or pre-builts are off limits, our original kit-bashed and scratch-built structures should be fair game.
So … anyone interested? If so, I’d gladly suggest some guidelines so we’re all on the same page. Your thoughts?
Sounds like a good idea, but it has sort of been done. There is a old posting, something like Photo Library. It was more for ideas for projects than to be printed out and be used as back drops.
Other question that come to mind is how many mega pixels would the camera need to be? This picture is of my Charger before it got the Blower and a friends Charger I did.
My camera is 3.2 mega pixels, looks good printed on a 9 X 11 but after that it would not look to good.
I am sure Blue will have some ideas after seeing the great photo he used for his back drop.
Thanks for the reply, Cuda Ken. Is the thread you’re speaking of called “This Old Spot?” I just stumbled across it a week or two ago, and I thought it was a great resource, but not at all what I was thinking of.
These would have to be photos of structures taken at particular angles to make it easy to paste the image into a montage, so that the perspective of all the images matched. (Yes, you can play with the perspectives in Photoshop-type programs, but it would be better and easier to have “base” images taken at something close to a standard angle.)
And as far as cameras, I’m guessing even a 2 mega pixel camera would provide enough resolution to print a good-sized HO building at a resolution of 200 dpi. “Guessing,” I said. Maybe someone more savvy will provide the answer.
There’s a very good article in the July 2010 MR titled “Models as Backdrops,” where the author uses photos of model buildings to create a 15-foot-long custom backdrop for a portion of Model Railroader’s HO club layout. And it got me to thinking …
What if forum members contributed photos to establish a “public library” of structure images that we could all borrow from to create our own custom backdrops? The scale of contributions wouldn’t matter, since digital images are easily re-sized. So an image of your O scale warehouse could easily be re-sized to fit on my N scale backdrop, and vice versa.
A generally good idea, but no different then doing Google or any other search engine image search. As a rule of thumb if I see an image that interests me weather it be here or any where else I copy and save it to a folder. I can’t comment on scaling images to fit etc. as I have no practical experience in doing so and don’t really know what would be involved.I do know that scaling images in CAD can be a tricky thing so I imagine photography can be as well.
The only potential problem that comes to mind involves copyright protection for kits or pre-assembled structures, but I wonder if that would apply here. It’s not as if you’re duplicating the product; you’re only producing an image of the product. But that might be a question for any legal eagles lurking about the forum.
There was a thread some months back that encountered a lot of mixed opinions when a poster started a thread about reproducing a commercial casting for his own use. After doing my do-diligence and having spoken to a patent attorney on a different subject but he shed some legal light on it enough to know that as long as your not reselling it or reproducing it for profitor for commercial purposes you are not in any violation of any copy right laws etc.That being said I can’t say that this may not apply to MR for hosting the collectio
My own belief is that if you want to use something like that that doing your own photos may be the way to do it. Barring that–lets face it, it’ll be very expensive going all over the place, there should be sites that you should be able to take any photo and use for backdrops. There seems to be some sites that have public domain images that can be used—as for the models that are photographed–hey, you took the ding photos–why not? It should be under fair use at some point I’d imagine
I’ve enough photos deposited in whatever threads that there should be something that can be used–as long as my name is credited(heeheehee)
You need to be a member to download textures, but the membership is for free. With a picture editing software, you can easily assemble any backdrop you´d like to have.
Maybe I did a lousy job of explaining my proposal. I’m not talking about downloading textures, which you would then use to create buildings. (The cgtextures site is a great resource for textures, but not for complete images of structures.)
Think of it this way: I’ve just built a rail yard, and I want to create a backdrop. I go to this library and browse through several examples of full images of model warehouses, industries, etc., that people have contributed. I can pick views from the front, the back, or either side. I choose backs, because these structures will face away from my tracks. I download the photos I want.
Then I browse through photos of models of commercial buildings. This time I choose fronts, because these buildings will be situated across the “street” from the warehouse images I downloaded earlier. I download the photos I want.
Then I take all the downloaded photos and digitally assemble them in a single master image to create a complete backdrop. I can rearrange each individual building to best complement my “real” railroad scene. And the end result is a backdrop customized to fit my particular needs.
Seems to me like it would be a great resource, but maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree.
I am a writer and so I pay attention to copyright laws. IMO, if you take the photo, you have the copyright, no matter what the subject is (live people do create some exceptions). For example, a photographer that sells a photo of a NYC street does not have to pay Chrysler a royalty if there is a 300C parked at the curb.
From an artist standpoint I will agree with you but fro a legal standpoint and lets face it thats what really matters is unless you do the leg work and dot the I’s and cross the T’s and make it all legal like then “your photograph” once it’s published is now public domain. Just because someone creates something doesn’t mean he or she automatically own the rights to it. If your familiar with the oddball custom car builder from California George Barris. He built a custom show truck back in the late 1950’s called “The Kopper Kart” well a few years back a few guys from here in New Jersey made a reproduction or a clone of the original which was proven to have been destroyed some time in the early 60’s. George attempted to sue the guys for copy right infringement. Only problem was he never copy righted the name or any of the images The owner of the “new Kopper Kart” did so they actually own the rights to the name.
It all comes down to hard hard does someone want to push the issue, the driving force is always dollars, it’s just that simple.
Today, I received my July copy of MR and read the article about creating custom backdrops from photos of models.
I still don´t see the point in creating a backdrop based on models, when there is a world of free textures and pictures in the web, with no copyright issues.
Will someone pleaes explain to me why I should have my backdrop with pictures of models, when I can have the real thing?
The Allen Keller proclamation is technically incorrect even if it does say so on the box. By law you may make copies (of any media) for “personal” use. So you can save them on your computer or copy them to DVD as long as you don’t share them with anyone else.
Yes, it does. From the United States Copyright Office: Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. It is automatic. Certainly, as you say, it comes down to how hard you want to push - and the $$. With names - like the car - , I think “trademark” is the legal term, and that does, indeed, require effort/registration. Of course, being a legal area, it is deliberately made as confusing as possible and slanted to those who have money or power. C’est la vie.
