1950s Ski Ad Scans for making Posters on SIA

DangerBoy

Hello fellow ballers,

Over the last while I've acquired a few vintage 1950s "Learn to Water Ski" brochures/booklets put out by a couple of outboard motor companies at some cost on eBay. I scanned a few pages from them in order to create some posters for my cabin which has sort of a vintage water ski & vintage outboard theme going on. The original images were pretty low resolution so to get them to where they look nice printed out at a way bigger size and much higher resolution took a TON of work and a fair bit of know-how in Photoshop. I spent several hours working on each of the three images I scanned to get them to where they are now. The SIA ad explains why it was so much work it in a little more detail. I have printed these images out to make 11" x 17" posters and the results are very pleasing and the images are fun.

I'm barely asking anything for the images which you can take and make your own posters from for display in your cabins or man caves, etc. I'm thinking that if a number of people are willing to pay a little for each of them I MIGHT make minimum wage for all of the hours I put into cleaning up, doctoring and bringing these images to a high enough quality for printing at small poster size. But that's not the main point really. The main thing is to make the images available to the water skiing community so others can enjoy them and maybe get compensated a little for all the work that went into creating them.

There are three images and the price is $4 USD each or all three for $10 USD. Fellow Canadians get them for the same price but in CAD. (Got to look out for my homies, y' know! )

Here's the link to the SIA ad if anyone is interested to take a look at it

ski-it-again.com/php/skiitagain.php?endless=summer&topic=Search&category=Misc&postid=50057

MDB1056

Nice job! Cool old art. Great lake house and boathouse pieces for framing

DangerBoy

@MDB1056 thanks for the compliment.

Below is a before and after of one of the images to give people an idea of what I had to do to make the scans look good enough for printing at 11" x 17".

The brochure I scanned this from was only 3.75" x 6.5" so just a little more than 1/8th the size of the targeted print size (area). The first image is the original scan. If you can, zoom into just about any of her skin areas and also the underside of the ski tip and the water spray around her feet. Can you see all the purple color noise there? That all had to be removed. Also notice the dull color, the stains the ratty edges, the grain, etc. All of it had to be cleaned up too.

The second image is a medium quality half size rendition of the final image. Look at the same areas on that image and you can see that the color noise is gone. Notice also that the image's proportions are quite different? I had to "add" image that wasn't there on all four sides to give the final image the correct aspect ratio for printing at 11" x 17" and pad the edges a little so that nothing important in the image will get covered by the frame which typically covers about 1/4" on each side of the print.

Before...


After...


An amazing amount of difference hey?

What cracks me up about this image is the one hand size tow rope handle she's using and what's with the other hand pointing back behind her? I guess that's for style points. Man, skiing has come a long way since 1956.

MDB1056

Nicely done! Much better then needed. I don’t get the single hand handle either, but there are a number of oddities in those old pictures I’ve noticed. Hope folks buy a ton of yours off SIA!

Rednucleus

Ha ha no vest, just like riding in the family wagon w/o seat belts

MISkier

I wonder if the single handle is for show skiing and additional bridle safety for things like pyramids. Since she was "featured at Cypress Gardens", the equipment used for the shoot may be tailored to show skiing.

BraceMaker

@DangerBoy - she invented a sport called swivel skiing which is still around but essentially has a binding on a lazy susan so it can spin front to back. I suspect that's actually what she's riding in the photo and the handle was probably for similar purposes.

DangerBoy

@BraceMaker She was definately an athlete and very good at what she was doing. Check out this scan of the back cover of the brochure.

PeterAK

Awesome! I'm in for all three. Reaching out through SIA.

PeterAK

I had one of these made into a canvas print for our cabin. It turned out great and I plan to do the same with the other two. Thanks @DangerBoy !

DangerBoy

That looks great up on the mantle! You're welcome @PeterAK

DangerBoy

Just giving this a bump to see if anyone else might be interested in these. Along with the digital files, I provide instructions for having them printed at VistaPrint and links to some nice, reasonably priced decent quality frames on Amazon so you won't have to spend any of your valuable time figuring out how to get them printed and finding frames to display them in.

These are great for displaying in your ski cabin, workshop, mancave, etc. They might also be great for a ski club or even a ski store maybe.

ski-it-again.com/php/skiitagain.php?endless=summer&topic=Search&category=Misc&postid=50057

Jody_Seal

DangerBoy

@Jody_Seal For a second I thought the guy in the pic was using one of those one-handed tow rope handles like Willa is in the Mercury poster but upon closer examination I can see that it's one of those old-school split handle tow ropes he's using. I know some people were using tow rpes like at the lake when I was a kid but I can't remember if I ever tried one. I probably did but just can't remember doing it. It seems like it was a long, long time ago...

I can imagine it was a real PITA trying to get a hold of one of those handles if you ever happened to drop one while skiing. The thing would keep bouncing off the water and would be really hard to grab a hold of.