----- Original Message ----- From: "Godfrey DiGiorgi"
Subject: Re: PP: Digital Grain
Since I was around and reading Playboy in the mid-late 1960s, I'll tell you that I never liked the centerfolds. They looked heavily processed and artificial, not like real women. And regards to retouching ... if they were not retouched, they sure blurred a lot of pubic and facial hair. ;-)
Lots of make-up and lots of grooming.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the models themselves recieved some airbrushing to smooth out their skin.
I always thought the pictures had to be airbrushed, but apparently they only recieved minor retouching, not major airbrushing.
Didn't they use Gowlandflexes, in addition to 4x5s, Hasselblads, Rolleiflexes, and other medium to large format cameras? 35mm was far from the established film standard in fashion and beauty work at that time.
The centerfold camera may have been a Gowland, though I doubt it. It was a custom built camera that took a sheet of film the full size of the centerfold.
My information, as I mentioned earlier, is from a fellow who assisted Playboy's centerfold photographer at that time, and I have read the same thing from other sources.
William Robb
