Kodak Shirleys

A long time ago I remember reading something about Kodak's test negatives/transparencies, which typically featured

a girl for flesh tones, etc. The girl (and thus the test neg) was called a "Shirley"

 

I've searched all over and I can't find anything about it. I see people referring to Kodak test negs as Shirleys, but no

website that shows them over the years, no source to buy them, etc.

 

Anyone know anything about Shirleys? I'd love to know.

shirleys came in some of the kodak books in a little envelope on inside front cover as i recall that is the only way i know to get them seems like mine is in a kodak c41 book the one with the yellow cover

Shirley has passed on. RIP.

 

The idea was to give you a known good negative that you could print.

 

Look up the Abobe 98 test picture. It has a model and various colors and a grey scale, Shirley younger fraternal twin.

Meet Shirley.<div></div>

Waldo, what year is this from? It's not the Shirley I remember from the early-mid 90's. The Shirley I knew wasn't quite so...sexy. :)

Thank you everyone.

 

I'm an amateur historian, and I find stuff like this fascinating. I'm not interested in generic "test negatives," I'm interested in Kodak Shirleys. I wanted to collect/see them and how they changed over the years. If I can get a variety of them, I'll put them on my website.

 

If anyone knows where I can find them (they're not even on eBay--at least I haven't seen any), I'd love to hear about it.

 

Special thanks, Waldo, for posting that one. Do you know when it was made?

That's the same Shirley that's in my 1974 Kodak Color Dataguide.

John's correct. The first Shirley I posted is from the 1974 Kodak Color Dataguide. Looking further I see that the Shirley negative is still in the envelope...looking pretty good, too. So I've posted the two of them below. BTW, the color of the Shirley print isn't quite as ghoulish as it shows on Photo.net.<div></div>

Here's a different Shirley. Rather than the real thing--i.e. negative and reference print--it's a depiction in four-color offset from the inside cover of the1970 Kodak publication No. E-66 "PRINTING COLOR NEGATIVES."<div></div>

This Shirley ring-a-round is printed on the fold-out back cover of Kodak E-66 PRINTING COLOR NEGATIVES.

Sorry, the photo didn't upload.<div></div>

And here's a closer view of the 1970 Shirley (in four-color offset).<div></div>

Thank you for sharing! I appreciate it very, very much.

James, these negatives, a little more technically, were referred to as printer control negatives, or perhaps setup or slope control negatives. If you do a search with some of these terms, I'm sure you'll come up with something.

 

The true purpose, rather than a simple "good" reference negative, was to assist setup with automatic printers or analyzers so that color shifts due to exposure were automatically handled.

 

I don't know about now, but as of a couple years ago, Kodak sold a set of Portra 135-film negs under cat# 1798511. For older ones, look for someone selling off an older mini-lab system.

Several different models posed for the "Shirley" shot including Gail, Ann, and Kim. The pictures were taken in the Photographic Technology Division studio on the 8th floor of Building 69 at Kodak Park.

 

Before: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://lh6.ggpht.com/_qQzyC3EUMwU/RwfkLiC8-lI/AAAAAAAAD8U/THaXmtSOQ5c/B69-65_019.JPG&imgrefurl=http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/2n6i-TtVhqUMkQtHOEeyDA&h=1067&w=1600&sz=13&hl=en&start=1&sig2=SIO-Zw1IH7-0opDMb7WGBQ&tbnid=CQcMg8wUuYhxCM:&tbnh=100&tbnw=150&ei=KeCgSP3KNqbceuy95bYF&prev=/images%3Fq%3DKodak%2BPark%2Bbuilding%2B69%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

 

After: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://lh4.ggpht.com/_qQzyC3EUMwU/RwfleCC8_iI/AAAAAAAAEEI/t3fEoyheyf0/B69-65_080.JPG&imgrefurl=http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QTCrfZxMNY-swd5TGeNJ0Q&h=1067&w=1600&sz=12&hl=en&start=2&sig2=hW4XfQOOGMr3k7IAT4UlDw&tbnid=NwMCkAcAiYi6CM:&tbnh=100&tbnw=150&ei=KeCgSP3KNqbceuy95bYF&prev=/images%3Fq%3DKodak%2BPark%2Bbuilding%2B69%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

Ron,

 

Those links are the most powerful symbols I have seen yet symbolizing the demise of film.

Decline, not demise.

 

Most of the decline has already happened. The casual film users have gone. The devoted film users are likely to stay around for awhile. I expect product discontinuances to slow down. We wont have all of our favorite products, but we will have some of them for years to come.

Here's Shirley scanned from the negative in the 1974 Kodak Color Dataguide. I did a little overall color balance in Nikon Scan, to get the background reasonably neutral. The scan looks a lot nicer than the print. If you do highlight/midtone/shadow color balance on dress/grey card/gloves, you can get the color even nicer, the sort of results that were only possible in dye transfer in the old days.

 

Shows how nasty the color papers were in 1974, in my opinion.<div></div>

Playing with the color print viewing filter kit, maybe it needs +5M or +5B to get the background neutral. The Blue helps the skin tones a but more. But I'm still learning color balancing, to be honest. (The picture is in sRGB color space, for your information. Scanner Nikon Coolscan IV.)

 

Another obvious difference of the scan is that the highlights aren't blown out, which they sure are on the prints. No detail in the fur on the prints. The papers had rather limited dynamic range, and a narrow color gamut.

The Shirley just above looks a bit red, so I tried auto white balance

(in GIMP).<div></div>

Here is a different Shirley that Scott Eaton posted five years ago.<div></div>

<p>I wouldn't describe Scott's Shirley as less striking.</p>

<p>still nicer than the aperion's "Trudy" http://www.aperioninc.com/products/tbn/about.php</p>

<p>"still nicer than the aperion's "Trudy" <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.aperioninc.com/products/tbn/about.php" target="_blank">http://www.aperioninc.com/products/tbn/about.php</a> "</p>

<p>Agreed.</p>

<p>Wonder what happened to Scott Eaton?</p>

<p>I posted this on the other thread about negatives in the digital darkroom section:</p>

<p>Anyone know from where this target originated:</p><div></div>