Isolating Hockey Players: Selecting/Layout before Photoshop

May 6, 2017 1:31 PM

"Photos [c. 1918] from the Vancouver Public Library record players from the Vancouver Millionaires and Vancouver Nats, two now-defunct professional hockey teams. Many of the photos have been partially painted over, apparently in an attempt to isolate or cut out the individual players for placement in the layout of a poster or book — a delicate task to do by hand."
posted by gemmy (10 comments total)

This is great (and I now want one of those sweaters!) -- thanks for posting this!
posted by schmod at 1:40 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

schmod -- The current Vancouver Canucks occasionally wear the Millionaires jerseys and you can buy them, e.g. here.

Also cool pictures with the pre-photoshop details.
posted by Rumple at 1:54 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

I wonder why the painting out was never finished in most cases -- did they feel they had screwed it up and abandoned it to try on another print?
posted by tavella at 2:08 PM on May 6, 2017

"I wonder why the painting out was never finished in most cases"

I'd say 100 years of storage caused some of the paint to chip off.
posted by Marky at 2:21 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

That's probably true for the ones missing irregular patches, but ones like these were clearly abandoned part way. While others where the corona around the player is complete, it isn't painted out to any regular shape that could be cut into a square or cameo to allow use elsewhere.
posted by tavella at 3:18 PM on May 6, 2017

Still looks like paint / whiteout flaked off to me. I doubt it was applied very thickly in the detail areas.

I don't know too much about analog-era layout techniques -- although I've always found them fascinating -- but they only really needed an outline. Paint a mask on the photo, make a copy, then cut the copy along the mask to use in your design (they don't need to be square). I assume it was done this way (instead of masking/cutting the original photo print) so the same mask could be used for multiple designs.

So they might be intentionally unfinished -- what's done is "good enough", do the rest of the work on the copy. Or possibly graphic design has changed less in 100 years than we think, and it was simply a client/management snafu.
posted by neckro23 at 3:55 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

Weird that these photos are the only thing popping up about the Vancouver Nats at all. I wonder what their story was.
posted by goatdog at 4:41 PM on May 6, 2017

The current Vancouver Canucks occasionally wear the Millionaires jerseys and you can buy them, e.g. here.


I'm so sad that they don't say Millionaires on them. I would wear one and tell people I am still priced out of Vancouver's property market.
posted by srboisvert at 4:43 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

Goatdog -- the "Vancouver Nationals". Almost nothing out there about them, though.
posted by Rumple at 5:40 PM on May 6, 2017

The sweaters are nice and all, but I kind of want that first suit.
posted by pykrete jungle at 8:48 PM on May 6, 2017