Here are some group pictures from when Dad was in the Marines. The first two were in pretty good shape, preserved in a scrapbook. I was able to scan them, clean them up a little bit, fix the sky in one of them, and then have a good finished image. The third was a huge challenge, one that I was ready for after spending so much time learning Photoshop in 2020.
Parris Island, SC
 |
| In the original, the sky was washed-out gray. I added some clouds. Dad is in the center of the first row. On his right (your left) is a friend from Lisbon, OH - they would stay in touch with each other for the rest of his life. |
Camp Lejeune, NC
May, 1953
Dad is second from the right in the first row.
Camp Pendleton, CA
October, 1953
The group picture from Camp Pendleton was originally 9" x 20". It was so long it didn't fit into a scrapbook, so the two ends were folded in. Over the years, the crease damaged the underlying image, and so it had to be repaired in Photoshop.
It was too big to fit on the scanner bed, so I scanned it in four pieces and stitched those pieces together on the computer to be whole again.
The crease on the left side was pretty damaging to the faces under it, while the right side mostly affected uniforms and the background. I took some artistic liberties with parts of this image while repairing it. For example, compare the window under the right-side crease in the original with the same area on the "after" image. Fixing the damaged area of the window to look original would have been harder to do than replace part of the window completely. In Photoshop, I removed the soldier's head and moved it to the side. I patched up the window, then put the head back. I did this kind of thing many times, and even replaced some damaged faces with other faces from another place in the photo. This is not a historically accurate photo.
 |
| Part of the right side of the image, before and after. |
 |
| The original image after scanning and "stitching" together the four scanned pieces. The yellow lines next to the creases are dried strips of tape used to hold the picture in the scrapbook. |
The final image, which measures 10" x 20" when printed, is below. I had each of the three group photos printed by Printique, an online printing service. The results were amazing - all the tiny flaws I could see when I zoomed into Photoshop disappeared during printing, the colors and shades blending perfectly.
 |
| The final version. |
No comments:
Post a Comment