* Chuckles some more *
Dark/Light/color wise, you can't really tell too much since photography wasn't 'all that' back then. You cannot even be sure to what extend certain photo's have been touched by 'the hand of time' allready to show distorted colors/brightness and such, before they became part of history. The quality wasn't all that either, back then. Unless you have real life, true color examples to match 100%, you'll find subtle difference between all those black and white shots anyway, at leat that I can see. And things like color codes from records from shipyards in those days.. well, not the most reliable source I would say. It's not like they handled their data like companies do today, and they surely didn't nitpick about very specific colors to use, really (not for the trivial stuff anyway). That was far less important to them than it is now to the 'buffs', trust me. So most of all the speculation (for lack of a better word) is based on assumptions, really... and perhaps most of these things will never be 100% clear, since she's been rusting away for a while now.
But again, if the experts say the SS06 one is better, then I wonder why Jason - who you say works closely with the people on the TRMA forum, from where you get the facts for these statements - has made the newer model less 'realistic'. Wouldn't those experts have told him that he was doing the wrong thing when he posted his progress reports on the forum there? I would still think he would make it better, not less good, specially since he's a Titanic buff himself too. But maybe I am wrong of course.
Smoke.. well.. less is better, so the experts say, as far as running the machinery goes, and if you look at old steamship photo's, it can go both ways to be honest. Some ships are spewing out massive clouds of black smoke, some only show the slightest hint of light grey puffs.. Not that I care a lot about smoke. Mere cosmetics really. But to each his own, obviously. It's not a constant at all, I would think. When run properly she'd probably had not made as much smoke as you'd think. But I'm no expert. I'd say on one day, SS06 could be right, but on another - better day - the SS08 ammount could be just as right too.
Sorry about the long post.. I just had to give you my 2 cents in full, since I was waiting oh so long for this answer allready.. hehe
Fred
