I acquired a volume set of The Harmsworth Magazine a while ago. I decided to scan in a few images to show that an image can easily be cleaned up or modified using Abobe® Photoshop®. The following scans are from The Harmsworth Magazine, Volume I, 1898-9, The Modern Miniature Craze. Illustrated by Charming Examples. by H.M. Tindall, pg 199. The article was about miniature paintings.
I often modify images before using them in my altered projects. I did some simple modifications to the image above to demonstrate. You may also chose to color or alter the images after printing.
I didn’t like the graininess of the image, so I decided to first soften the image. I used the Angled Brush Stroke filter. To find the brushstrokes look under the Filter menu, follow it down to Brush Strokes, then click on Angled Strokes.
The image was just too fuzzy. I decided to sharpen the image. To sharpen the image go into the Filter menu, go down to Sharpen and click on Sharpen.
I wanted the image to stand out more. This next part is a bit complicated. I used the magnetic lasso, generally just below the dashed square (selector) button on the tool bar. The magnetic lasso has a horseshoe shaped magnet as well as the lasso. I used the magnetic lasso to follow the outline of the girl. Once I had completed selected the girl, I used copy (under the Edit menu) and paste (also under the Edit menu).
I right clicked on my new layer. Then I clicked on Blending Options. I clicked on the Stroke box. I changed the stroke color to grey, chose a soft light blending method and an outside stroke. Then I checked the Bevel and Emboss box. I clicked on Bevel and Emboss, chose an Outer Bevel and Smooth Technique. I then played with the Depth, Direction and Size slider bars until I was satisfied with the image.
Since the page included 2 more images. I decided to give you two more images to play with. The original images are all scanned in at 300 dpi. The modified images are 200 dpi. You may have to click on the images and look at them larger to see the full effect. I believe they fall in the category of public domain, so you are free to use them.
Have fun! I hope you create some wonderful altered art.
May 21, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I won’t pretend to understand what you did to the images, but I really like the effects.
I love the old Victorian images like the ones in this post.
May 21, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Since not everyone uses the same image editing tool, it would be difficult to follow if you weren’t familiar with Photoshop.
Also it’s hard to see the changes in the images in the blog post. The images have been resized to fit within the blog post. In flickr, the images are much larger. When you scan something in at 300 dpi (dots per inch), you can subtly change the texture of the image. The improves the print quality.
In your photo editing software the dot size is fixed, so a 4″x5″ 300 dpi image is larger than a 72 dpi image. The printer will print more colored dots per inch, i.e. a 4″x5″ 300dpi image is the same size as a 4″x5″ 72dpi image.