Japanese Backdrop Scenes

[bill937ca]

Here's a page of Japanese backdrops that may be of use to some of you.

 

http://shiagenin.michikusa.jp/haikeigazou.html

 

A rice paddy with a foothill in the background.

 

http://shiagenin.michikusa.jp/denen.html

 

Green as far as the eye can see.

 

http://shiagenin.michikusa.jp/sanmyaku.html

 

Similar

 

http://shiagenin.michikusa.jp/yama.html

[Bernard]

Bill - These are great, I makes me want to have a layout that was mounted to a wall so I could get the full effect of the panoramic view.

If you don't mind me asking, how is your tram layout?

[bc6]

Thanks for posting these Bill, they're awesome.

[Guest ___]

@#2-->bc6: Love the icon. 

[bill937ca]

Bill - These are great, I makes me want to have a layout that was mounted to a wall so I could get the full effect of the panoramic view.

If you don't mind me asking, how is your tram layout?

 

I now have a train layout and two smaller tram layouts neither of which have progressed very much. I haven't got much done lately.

[Bernard]

 

 

I now have a train layout and two smaller tram layouts neither of which have progressed very much. I haven't got much done lately.

 

Same with me, I'm at the point of scenery which really isn't my favorite part of Model RR, plus with work and now the summer, things are just progressing at a snail's pace.

 

 

But back to the topic, these backdrops you found would look great around a wall!

[domino]

Beautiful.

 

Now, im not that great with my computer, so how do i get these backdrops , do i just print them out on my printer ??

 

Brian

domino

 

 

 

Here's a page of Japanese backdrops that may be of use to some of you.

 

http://shiagenin.michikusa.jp/haikeigazou.html

 

A rice paddy with a foothill in the background.

 

http://shiagenin.michikusa.jp/denen.html

 

Green as far as the eye can see.

 

http://shiagenin.michikusa.jp/sanmyaku.html

 

Similar

 

http://shiagenin.michikusa.jp/yama.html

[cteno4]

Bill,

 

thanks mucho these are really great. you really can dig up the cool stuff out there on the net!

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

Beautiful.

 

Now, im not that great with my computer, so how do i get these backdrops , do i just print them out on my printer ??

 

Brian

domino

 

 

Brian,

 

you may need to rez these up to a larger pixel size to print out to the size you may need for a backdrop on the layout. most photo editing programs will let you do this. what happens when you make the picture larger is the program will turn 1 pixel into 2 or 3, but try to do this by estimating what the colors of those new pixels should be so that the picture doesnt start to just look really fuzzy. most photo editing programs do this to blow up a picture 2-3x if you are not looking at it close, so cool for a backdrop which you are several feet away from and there is a lot of stuff in front of it distracting your eye. there are programs specifically made to blow up photos and those can go larger with better quality, but these programs can cost some bucks.

 

if you do try to blow one of these up to print, chop out a vertical strip from the picture that has a good sample of the details and colors from that picture and try blowing that up and printing it out to see how it looks and if it will hold up visually or look too fuzzy. if you have an A4 sized printer then you would need to print it out in sections and piece it together on a backing board.

 

you can then take the picture to a copy/printing place that has a larger format printer if you want to get a longer print out. larger format inkjet printers can print like 1m wide and as long as you want. just a question if you can blow the picture up to that size and it still looking good. again before you spend money doing something like this print out a small test strip to make sure it works! usually its a few dollars per square foot here.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[domino]

thanks .

Brian

 

 

[quote author=cteno4 l

ink=topic=1354.msg13156#msg13156 date=1247360472]

Bill,

 

thanks mucho these are really great. you really can dig up the cool stuff out there on the net!

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

Beautiful.

 

Now, im not that great with my computer, so how do i get these backdrops , do i just print them out on my printer ??

 

Brian

domino

 

 

Brian,

 

you may need to rez these up to a larger pixel size to print out to the size you may need for a backdrop on the layout. most photo editing programs will let you do this. what happens when you make the picture larger is the program will turn 1 pixel into 2 or 3, but try to do this by estimating what the colors of those new pixels should be so that the picture doesnt start to just look really fuzzy. most photo editing programs do this to blow up a picture 2-3x if you are not looking at it close, so cool for a backdrop which you are several feet away from and there is a lot of stuff in front of it distracting your eye. there are programs specifically made to blow up photos and those can go larger with better quality, but these programs can cost some bucks.

 

if you do try to blow one of these up to print, chop out a vertical strip from the picture that has a good sample of the details and colors from that picture and try blowing that up and printing it out to see how it looks and if it will hold up visually or look too fuzzy. if you have an A4 sized printer then you would need to print it out in sections and piece it together on a backing board.

 

you can then take the picture to a copy/printing place that has a larger format printer if you want to get a longer print out. larger format inkjet printers can print like 1m wide and as long as you want. just a question if you can blow the picture up to that size and it still looking good. again before you spend money doing something like this print out a small test strip to make sure it works! usually its a few dollars per square foot here.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[stevenh]

Here were two I received when I bought my layout.

The previous owner was to print them out and stick them to the backboards.

Huge image of east Hiroshima

Huge image of Tokyo

[to2leo]

Thanks for the latest images!  They are amazing.

[Sir Madog]

Is there a source for backdrops with Japanese mountain scenery?

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Is there a source for backdrops with Japanese mountain scenery?

 

I have had tremendous difficulty getting hold of suitable backdrops. It depends how mountainous you wish to get... European Alpine scenes may be suitable, once offending structures are hidden. In my case, I wanted something more hill-like than mountain...but still high. I had a look on Google and found a suitable scene, which is in fact American. Once a couple of tell-tale buildings, such as a distinctive water tower disappeared behind a more Japanese structure, it is really not that noticeable.

 

It sort of fits in with this portrait of a Tomix DF50 testing out the branch line on Yamanouchi Oshika.

[KenS]

Bill was the first to post this link, but it's shown up a few times:

 

http://shiagenin.michikusa.jp/haikeigazou.html

 

What's interesting is that some of the images (maybe all) were widened by making a mirror-image of the end and attaching it to the original (you can see a couple of buildings with odd-looking roofs if you look closely).  I think that's okay for typical backdrop use, but you may want to look closely at how those joints would line up with the layout scenery.

 

Also, use Flickr's advanced search to look for "Japan Mountain Panorama" with creative commons selected (otherwise you can't save the full size version).  But beware, as a number of these are only 1024 pixels wide and that's not enough for a backdrop.  I'd recommend 3000 pixels at a minimum for a four-foot (1.2m) backdrop, assuming you can enlarge them 2x with Photoshop Elements.  See my Making Backdrops page for some comments on resizing.  I used Perfect Resize (US$100) on my latest backdrop to enlarge it more than 2x, but working with an image that limited isn't going to get you the best results (you might be happy with a 1024-pixel image enlarged 6x, but probably not).

 

Ideally, from a 4' viewing distance, you need 150 pixels-per-inch (60 pixels-per-cm) for "photographic" quality (that's after any enlarging).  You can get by with less since the backdrop isn't what people are mainly looking at, but it's going to get problematic fairly quickly.

 

Panoramas usually don't contain the EXIF metadata that says what camera was used.  If you can find out, images from a DSLR are going to be better sources than those from a point-and-shoot or camera-equipped phone (due to lens quality, mainly).

 

Either way, cut out some small sections and print them at full size on an inkjet or photo printer as tests before paying for a full-size print.  I did this with 4x6 inch (100 x 150 mm) prints on my latest project, and what you see on paper at arms-length is very different from what you seen in pixels on a screen.

[bill937ca]

Thanks for the credit Ken!

[cteno4]

also passing them thru some rezup software can really work wonders. these do fancy interpolation of the data there to fill in the picture better when you bump the resolution up for a larger backdrop. these can be pricy for the big ones, but i think a few inexpensive ones have come out of late, it been on my list to research into them some more. a friend of mine who is a large format photographer taught a short course with a company that does blowups and she was blow away at what they could do with their (very expensive) software, but the more inexpensive one at the time (this was a few years back) were under $100 and getting cheaper. might snoop around your local jr college to see if anyone has this and if you can get onto a system to play. some print shops will also do this for hire or like fedex/kinkos here you can rent time on their systems and they may have this software there as they do large banner printing.

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

Here`s a couple of  scenes suitable for a backdrop.

 

 

[Sascha]

Can anyone please tell me where I can get Japanese themed backscenes ? I searched the internet, but couldn't find any.It needs to be 8 foot long. Right now I don't care what kind of theme it is as long its Japanese themed(Mountains, City, Woods ect...). I am not good at drawing, so that's out of the question.

 

 

[macdon]

http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/1105-japanese-backdrop-scenes/

 

Mardon

[Sascha]

Thanks you very much Sir, but I don't have a printer. I was thinking about buying.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Sascha

[disturbman]

Well. Buying would probably look like something like this: you going to a professional print shop with a USB stick and file(s) you would have selected and prepared beforehand.

[Sascha]

Oh. I thought they have places where they sell scenery, but that's also an option. Thanks.

[disturbman]

Maybe but it would be a hassle to find something appropriate; and by that I mean image wise and paper wise; plus it will most likely be over-priced.

The only thing you need to remember is to have a definition good enough, for printing 300dpi is normally the norm. For paper, 120gr per sqm should be enough for the purpose but your printer should be able to guide you properly.

[Lawrence]

Sascha, if you have a very good quality image you can get it professionally printed.  I had one which a friend edited it into 12 inches high by 11 feet long, I had it printed onto matt vinyl but a company that makes these big banners, it cost me £38 but it will last so much longer than paper backscenes and I felt it was worthwhile

[Sascha]

Thanks for all the help. I found some cool pictures from Tokyo online. Going to the shop on Tuesday. What would be the best height? My table is 8x3 foot.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Sascha