Athearn DD Boxcars: Faded Paint?

[ljudice]

I was sort of looking forward to the Athearn offset DD FMC boxcars - which were shown in artwork diagrams as "faded" with BN patches. But if you look at the photos posted at MB Klein, it looks like they got it backwards. The cars have deep colors and the patches look faded.

How could they do this?

[up1950s]

How 'bout a link to the exact example you're talkin' 'bout please . I tried quite a few and I don't see exactly what you say you saw .

[ljudice]

Try:

http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/product_p/ath-17272.htm

Maybe I'm just seeing things - but it doesn't look faded to me...

[up1950s]

Wow that does look wrong . I wonder if they actually had a photo .

[up1950s]

However I found this with what looks like that lighter faded looking paint on a section of the reporting marks .

[Walkercolt]

From a former BN carman. The reporting marks that are painted over they use Marsh(TM) Stencil Ink in rattle cans and it comes in colors close to most freight cars. Then they use black or white Marsh Stencil Ink for the data. The Marsh ink fades "differently" than the paint; it can fade faster or much more slowly depending on the color. Reds, browns, yellows seem to fade faster under sunlight. Makes good sense. Those colors absorb more UV light, and fade more. (Ask you wife about drapes.) Even different brands of paint fade differently. I owned a Honda Accord that had fender repainted, and in a few years, it was a different color than the rest of the car. "Black" tankcars fade to lighter than Floquil Faded Black, nearly to Dark Lark Grey. If you don't have either MacBeth, X-Rite or another monitor color corrector program and hardware, what I see on my monitor will be different than yours. Color is so subjective, 87% of color TVs in the US are BADLY out of adjustment on Chroma and/or tint. I was hoping and praying HDTV would be like PAL where the station can correct your TV(even if it's not working right) to what "master control's" monitor looks like.

[MrKLUKE]

.

[cv_acr]

[TiVoPrince]

Color is so subjective, 87% of color TVs in the US are BADLY out of adjustment on Chroma and/or tint. I was hoping and praying HDTV would be like PAL where the station can correct your TV(even if it's not working right) to what "master control's" monitor looks like.

Hiring
a certified technican to colour correct (ISF calibration) your TV is a great investment.  I bought hardware to do this myself because TiVoPincess insists on a colour perfect picture on every TV.

Factory settings are garish by design because most consumers looking at televisions on a saturday will buy the brightest, most saturated and highest contrast set in the store.  Not because its the best set, it just stands out from the others in the store...

[Walkercolt]

I have the equiptment for my video productions to set-up monitors and cameras. Most cable systems and the satilite TV all have stations that broadcast the IRC color bars. Computer monitors are also all over the place. Many people set them to 6900* Kevin(way too blue) because they are "brighter". 5000*K is "daylight", 4400*K is for offices with flourescent lights, and 3200*K matches tungsten light. I've never done a "serious" train video, but I have sold a number of videos to local Colleges and Universities. My best seller has been "The life cycle of a frog." The old 16mm films are mostly worn-out, and nobody wants to do this kind of work because you can't shoot it in an afternoon. Chemistry and Physics videos sell well too....nobody does the experiments in lab anymore, stuff I did in High School, and the AV labs at the colleges aren't interested in doing them either. Right now, I've got a time-laspe set-up in my backyard for a bean sprouting. When it's done, I have 54 orders already. Helps pay for the train habit.