Image Assignment
This assignment asked us to run through our entire repertoire of Photoshop tricks. Combining multiple requirements while working on a single image was acceptable, which I chose to do. It happens that my father-in-law had spent last weekend in Georgia with his parents, helping with their taxes. When he came back, he brought a number of photographs from his childhood, which I borrowed to scan and play with.
His father, my grandfather-in-law, was an Army officer during World War II who continued to serve after the war. He was stationed in a number of places around the world, and took his young family with him. My father-in-law lived for a couple of years in Tehran, Iran. The picture sequence below is from a birthday party he had while living there.
First, I scanned the photograph with my handy desktop scanner, a CanoScan LiDE 30 by Cannon. Then, I cropped the image to isolate the donkey on the left, since my father-in-law is the boy riding it. We lost the expressions on the two jokesters to the right, but the decision was made to focus on the theme at the expense of levity. After that, I used Enhance>Adjust Lighting>Levels to bring out some of the details. Using the color droppers, I found what would be the most likely “black” areas of the photo and the most likely “white” areas, thus evening out the contrasts and removing some of the fading that had occurred over time. After that, I proceeded to the coloration. For each main block of color on each character – the friend’s hair, the worker’s skin, the birthday boy’s suit, etc. – I created a new layer. Then I used the Magnetic Lasso tool to create a selection defining the area I wanted to work with. Once the selection was made, I picked a color, picked the Paintbrush tool, set the Mode to “Multiply,” and cranked the Opacity way back to about 25%. Then it was a simple matter of brushing back and forth over the selected area. I used the Eismann book to find proper skintones. I’m pleased with the result.
Moving backwards in time, I found a baby picture of my father-in-law, from 1947. As you can see, it was badly damaged, and was printed on some sort of textured paper that lent itself to creasing and tears. The Levels of the original were odd – the graph showed them clustering in the middle. I dragged the black “ear” to the right until it matched up with the output levels, and dragged the white “ear” to the left until it hit the space where the “white” levels occurred. This brought out the details of the picture, and helped me see where I had to work. From then, I basically followed the instructions from Eismann, on pages 202 to 208. Using the Elliptical Marquee tool, I made a selection and added a Gaussian Blur to create the vignette on a new layer. That way, as I worked with the restoration, I could click the vignette on and off to save myself from repairing damage that would fall outside the final view. The Healing Brush and Clone Stamp were my friends, as the wrinkles of time were digitally burnished away.
Finally, I had to depart from my theme to pick an engraving to matte. Using Dr. Petrik’s links, I picked out a pictorial envelope from the Library of Congress’s “American Memory” site. My chosen image comes from an envelope printed in the Union during the Civil War, depicting the Devil holding a jug of whiskey and supporting the Confederacy. I cropped it to show just the image, and then I ran straight into a brick wall. You know that cool trick Dr. Petrik taught us about double-clicking beside the layer’s name to bring up Blending Options, then dragging the slider around until you see the brightly colored background bleeding through? Turns out that doesn’t work in Photoshop Elements. Not wanting to drop $200 to do this the right way, I resolved to do what any good computer-savvy user does – find a work-around. It took me about half an hour, but I found it. Go to Enhance>Adjust Color>Replace Color. Then, use the eyedropper tool to select the color of the envelope you want to blend away. Once that’s done, crank the slider at the bottom of the window (Hue, Saturation, and Lightness) all the way to the right. This will give you a nice white background, but wash out some of your engraving. Then, take the slider for “Fuzziness” (a very technical Photoshop term, I’m sure) and move it around. Here you’ll see that cool effect of the background color “rezzing” in and out. Find a happy medium, and then use the Eraser tool to take care of any left-over bits of color. Voila, you have a matted engraving.