Several weeks ago I was the on-set photographer for the production of A Bess Pelau, a Macfarlane Film short.
Monthly Archives: July 2012
3 Steps to Quick and Easy Borders in Photoshop
At the beginning of Sunday’s photo restoration tutorial, we began by cropping away the rough edges of the photograph.
However, on some images the border is what gives it that touch of polish. Especially on vintage photographs, where some kind of border is very common due to the machines used in the enlargement process. It’s possible to add genuine scanned paper borders for a lovely effect, but that’s an entirely different technique. For now we’ll start with something simple.
Let’s take the image we worked on last week.
The Soldier’s Goodbye – a 10 step photo restoration
Restoring old photos is a rewarding pastime. I love seeing beautiful, tired old pictures emerging alive and sparkling from the restoration process. It’s always my aim to maintain the original feel of the photo. To me, this means making appear as it would have done either when it was new, or if it had appeared in an ideal world.
Today’s tutorial is a brief introduction into the world of restoration. There are of course countless techniques depending on the photo, editing software, and the preferences of the artist performing the restoration.
As a practice piece, this charming, but rather sad photo caught my eye in the Flickr Commons.
(The Commons are a great resource for practice photos, inspiration, history, and so much more. It’s always worth browsing when you get the chance.)
It’s just a little faded from age, rather than severely damaged. Perfect for a quick freshening up to bring it back to its former glory.
A K1000 and an SRT 202 go for a walk in the woods…
Yesterday my new batteries arrived for both of my beautiful old SLRs. One is a Pentax K1000 that was my dad’s, it was the camera that took all of our baby photos, and the other is a wonderful Minolta SRT 202 that I inherited from my granddad. I recently bought an assortment of various expired rolls of film from eBay.
To celebrate my two now-working manual cameras, I went for a walk to the woods to test them out.
I loaded my Pentax with old Fujifilm, which developed with beautiful colours and amazing emerald undertones. While my Minolta had an expired roll of Kodak film, with developed with warmer, softer colours. I can’t wait to play with more types of film so I can see the effects each produces.
Look at these colours!
(Expired Fujifilm, taken with a Pentax K1000
