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Crappy airbrushing in Topps series 1

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Mighty Bombjack

Active member
Aug 7, 2008
6,115
12
There's a bit of history with Topps airbrushing jerseys onto players after they have changed teams, and I actually tend to like the examples of this from the 80s (pretty common in the traded sets). But while opening a box of 2019 series 1 flagship, several cards jumped out at me as looking fake as hell. I've scanned two examples here:

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Both of these players played all of 2018 on their respective teams, with Gray pitching for the Yankees for a year and a half. In this day and age, with an abundance of digital photography available, why can't Topps get real photos? Sonny Gray is currently in ST with the Reds, and if this were a Reds jersey that they put on him in anticiation of that, then I would forgive the airbrushing (I'm probably dating myself by using the term - this is more likely a photoshop or some other digital job). I guess it's cost-cutting by Topps, but I think it's unnecessarily ugly.

Rant over.
 

rsmath

Active member
Nov 8, 2008
6,086
1
Lazy. Cost cutting. Probably both.

it seems like it'd be cheaper to license a photo with them in their proper uniforms than topay to license a photo and have to pay more money to someone to spend an hour or two or whatever to airbrush that photo to put them in their proper uniform.

I'm going to have to look at the Wade Davis card in person again. When I first saw it while going through my h/c set, it didn't seem airbrushed to me. That sonny gray definitely looks airbrushed to me.

Airbrushing has also got me wondering about the Bowman sets. Are the draftees and other youngsters in those sets airbrushed or do they have photoshoots for them to wear their big league clubs uniforms? I suppose the rookie league clubs probably wear uniforms similar to their big league club so that may help in taking photos of them in major league uniforms for the bowman cards.
 

brian26

Member
Nov 12, 2010
679
10
The new Topps cards are so shiny and filtered that it's hard to tell. Those almost look like real photos that have been filtered tremendously.
 

finestkind

Well-known member
Aug 17, 2008
3,986
901
Massachusetts
Or...another one of Topps accidently on purpose mistakes. Printing errors, what ever spin Topps puts on a card so people buy more cards with the same player picture. :|
 

Mighty Bombjack

Active member
Aug 7, 2008
6,115
12
it seems like it'd be cheaper to license a photo with them in their proper uniforms than topay to license a photo and have to pay more money to someone to spend an hour or two or whatever to airbrush that photo to put them in their proper uniform.

I'm going to have to look at the Wade Davis card in person again. When I first saw it while going through my h/c set, it didn't seem airbrushed to me. That sonny gray definitely looks airbrushed to me.

Airbrushing has also got me wondering about the Bowman sets. Are the draftees and other youngsters in those sets airbrushed or do they have photoshoots for them to wear their big league clubs uniforms? I suppose the rookie league clubs probably wear uniforms similar to their big league club so that may help in taking photos of them in major league uniforms for the bowman cards.
Please do take a look. In hand, the Davis looks worse to me than the Gray. When I look at it on here, the Gray looks like it could just be crazy filtered or something, some kind of effect that makes the pinstripes look cartoon-ish. But I have pulled out all of he Rockies cards (my team) and there are numerous pitching shots that are similar to Davis’s in angle. They all look natural to me, while Davis’s looks crazy fake.

To your question about Bowman, a HUGE number of those jerseys are airbrushes/photoshopped on. Several are ST shots, but many are minors or even college shots that have been altered. Topps usually does a good job with them, but sometimes they stick out.

But please look at these cards in hand (anyone who has them) and tell me what you think.
 

Mighty Bombjack

Active member
Aug 7, 2008
6,115
12
it seems like it'd be cheaper to license a photo with them in their proper uniforms than topay to license a photo and have to pay more money to someone to spend an hour or two or whatever to airbrush that photo to put them in their proper uniform.

To address this point, the cheapest thing for Topps to do is use photos that their photographers have taken (usually in ST or at one if the NY stadiums). They already own the rights to those photos. They also have a team of graphics people on staff already. Thus, I imagine that if they have a shot of a player, but not in their current uniform, it costs nothing to have one of the graphics people throw on the current uni. Like I said, they are practiced at it because of all the Bowman sets.
 

cardcop05

New member
Nov 15, 2018
64
0
NYC
Bombjack: I was going to say the exact same thing about the Sonny Gray, it does look cartoonish!

Some years Topps just seems to drop the ball on entire Topps Series or Bowman paper base cards. Must be new Product Teams (they usually have two employees make a set- if one employee is brand new and the other fairly new= BAD product most times) doing the screwed up sets.

2007 Topps base cards had a ton of uncorrected errors: many wrong facsimile player signatures on card fronts, wrong stats on backs, pitcher stats on hitter cards???

But the worst ever is still 2001 Score Select football. All hobby boxes stated "GUARANTEED RC AUTOGRAPH & SERIAL NUMBERED ROOKIE PER BOX". Then more than half the boxes were missing one or the other & sometimes both! Plus a good 20% of the FINAL SCORE base card parallels (#'ed to the amount of games the team won in 2000) HAD NO SERIAL NUMBER AT ALL ON THE BACK! Many months later Playoff "found" the autographs & RC's in a box at the printer (Great Western Inc.). ???
 
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