Section 6: Color Transparencies Ultraviolet Light 4 x 5
For photo location within the Shroud, see the Grid tab below.
Section six contains 59 photos including 6 black and white UV photos, the descriptive photo and the grid for location.
The 4 x 5 color transparencies below were done under ultraviolet light for the purpose of studying the blood, image, water, burn marks, and the background of the Shroud cloth. Interspersed among these UV photos are white light photos (WL) for comparison. Black and white negatives taken under UV light were done for the purpose of pursuing a more extensive study of the blood marks, exudates (lighter serum lines around the blood marks) and wounds (scourge marks, etc,). See group I, 8. As a result, the photos in this section bring out other details of the blood marks and wounds of the Man of the Shroud. Vernon’s UV light photographs add a whole new visual dimension in the pursuit of the study of the Shroud.
To see the original UV Light Fluorescent Photos, retrieved through image processing, see section J.
Color Correcting Miller’s Ultraviolet (UV) Images
The objective: Restoring the UV images back toward their original color
The Miller ultraviolet (UV) photos on the shroudphotos.com website are all products of Vernon Miller and contain high quality data. However, over time it was discovered that the originals were not available. What is available on this website are Miller’s high-quality photos but the colors are not original. Vernon Miller had taken photos of his originals using colored filters and that is what is presently in the collection. There have been two attempts to bring the original color back into Miller’s UV photos. One attempt was done using Photoshop and this collection is found in Group J of the in-depth-study, section 6, Color Transparencies Ultraviolet Light (UV) 4×5. (Note: Photoshop was applied to the Miller transparencies that were scanned using an auto mode which means that the light source varied for each photo. This variation does not affect the quality of the data in the photos. However, since each image received a different amount of light during scanning, their intensities cannot be compared to one another.) A second attempt was done using a mathematical model which is explained below. That collection is found in Group K. (Note, for the group K images, the Miller transparencies were copied using a constant light source which does not affect the quality of the data. Since the light source was constant, the intensities of the group K photos can be compared to one another.)
Gilbert Lavoie, M.D. and Tom D’Muhala, a member of STURP, developed the shroudphotos.com website. In addition to many other photos, the site contains 44 copies of 4×5 transparencies of Miller’s 1978 UV photos. The uploaded UV images, as explained above, are definitely not a complete record of the UV photos taken by Miller. Miller states in his 1981 paper1 that for the UV images, he used Kodacolor 400-5075 film in a 2 ¼ – inch format size, which is a color negative film. Miller’s original negative images would have been printed as positive images. Miller then photographed these positive images to produce 4×5 inch color transparencies, which are what were used to develop the UV web images on shroudphotos.com. The 4×5 inch transparencies were photographed by using a constant light source and a Hasselblad camera to generate the web images.
The UV images on shroudphotos.com have an orange tinge to them. Miller’s originals did not have this tinge as explained below. In a recent paper2, McAvoy demonstrated that this orange color is due to the fact that Miller used two color correction filters when he produced his transparencies. One filter was a magenta filter and the other was a yellow filter. These filters had the effect of lowering the average intensity of the web images and they altered their color from yellow-green to brown-orange. McAvoy compared 6 of the orange-tinged UV images to the same images that were published in 1981. The 1981 images were not filtered, and they show the true color of Miller’s UV images. By comparing the 1981 images to the orange tinged images, McAvoy was able to develop a mathematical model for the 2 filters Miller used. By the use of this model, the color of some of the UV images on shroudphotos.com was restored back toward their original color.
A limitation of this color restoration approach is that the original color and intensity of the 1981 images are masked somewhat by ageing and by the complex printing processes. Also, due to the many steps involved in getting to the UV images onto the web some differences are bound to exist between Miller’s original images, the transparencies made from them, and the web images. These limitations should be kept in mind in using the color corrected UV images given here.
When reference2 two below was published the UV web images of shroudphotos.com were contained in the In-Depth-Study, section 6: Color Transparencies Ultraviolet Light (UV) 4×5. There are 11 groups labeled A to K in section 6 of the In-Depth-Study. Each photo is numbered and can be also found in the Gallery, pages 5, 6, and 7.
McAvoy’s filter model2 has been used on 21 UV images. The model was used on the UV images of groups B, C, and D of section 6 of the In-Depth-Study. The results of reconstructing these UV images can be found in Group K in section 6 of the In-Depth-Study.
McAvoy also showed that Miller used stronger filters on UV images in groups E, F, and G and these stronger filters eliminated too much green and blue light. As a result, these images are darker and their color cannot be reconstructed using a filter model. However, the images that have been reconstructed and presented in group K cover the same parts of the Shroud as the darker images. Images in group H (except for image 188) do not have filter information on them, so it is unknown what filters were used. (Group I are B&W photos of UV images and not part of this discussion) The interested reader should consult reference2 two for a detailed discussion on how the filter model is used for color correction. Reference2 two also presents detailed results that demonstrate that the information content in the orange-brown UV web images on shroudphotos.com is essentially independent of color.
References
- Miller V., Pellicori S. Ultraviolet fluorescence photography of the Shroud of Turin, Journal of Biological Photography, 49, pp. 71-85 (1981).
- McAvoy T. ‘Shroud of Turin ultraviolet light: color and information content’, Opt., 6 pp. 6604-6613 (2021).
The Grid for Location is a photo of the Shroud cloth which is covered by a grid of squares. The location of marks on the Shroud can be found using the Grid, which includes numbers 1 through 22 on the horizontal and letters A through F on the vertical. The letters and numbers colored in red found under Image Details correspond to a specific location on the Grid. These are found in two places: section 3 Colored Transparencies, micrograph 35mm film and section 6 Colored Transparencies, ultraviolet light 4×5. See photo: 007.
For easier access, the Descriptive Photo and the Grid for Location are also found within some of the sections of the photo collection.
