The problem with going with photos, as John said, photos fade over time. Plus, the color representation GREATLY depends on the lighting type or source (sunlight or artificial light, and the SOURCE of the artificial light, such a fluorescent, halogen, arc spotlight, flash, etc) as well as angle, size of the subject, distance, color saturation, the film type and exposure time, formulation, exposure, and of course more factors added in like developing (pushing or pulling the film to account for over/under exposure, etc) and then of course if it's from prints, the quality of the paper, how it was stored, etc. etc. etc. IOW, *NO* film image, even taken and compared *at the time* will be 100% "accurate" as to its color rendering compared to the original. Might be impossible to differentiate with the naked eye, BUT I guarantee that a computer could tell the difference. And that's IF one were trying to match it *absolute correct* at the time the photo was taken with the prototype. Add in the vagaries of time and storage issues and it's virtually guaranteed that the color "in the photo" will be MARKEDLY different than it would have appeared on the prototype when it was photographed.
If you add in "modern" steps like scanning, computer storage, transmission, reprinting, etc. it only adds more and more layers of "error" or change to the differences already inherent in the original photograph of the prototype.
Then there's the way the human eye perceives images, which is MARKEDLY different from how photographs record images on film, or how electronic devices record images on tape or as digital information, and of course how they are then reproduced to be perceived by the eye. Light source, angle, size, distance, haze and other atmospheric effects, type of coating or finish, etc. all play huge roles in how we perceive a given color or texture of a prototype object.
Just some of the factors involved. SO, basically it boils down to "accurate according to WHOM?" You have to define SOME sort of standard, and for scale model judging, going by the submitted packet is about as close as you're gonna get.
Reminds me of something I just saw on "The Great War" YouTube channel, about Russian military uniforms in WWI... Basically the Russians had literally THOUSANDS of different types of uniforms, as there was great differentiation not only between different jobs, positions, echelons, etc but even between different units, different regions or areas that a particular soldier came from even within a unit, etc. Basically every kind of differentiation you can think of had its own uniform or some changes to make it unique for that particular difference. Then you throw in the differences between factories; all were making uniforms to be a particular color, but depending on the dye process the colors came out everywhere from a muddy brownish-green to a light greenish tan... some were dyed too long others not long enough, too strong a dye or too weak a dye was used, differences in hue of the dye provided by the producer of the dye, etc. So even though a given factory might be producing "X" uniform, in a particular "Y" color, it might turn out different shades in different batches...
Later! OL J R
