Image Assignment
For this assignment, we were required to touch up some image documents for our project. For this, I chose several images of Carlo Ciampaglia, a letter from the Chief Architect, George Dahl, and a newspaper clipping from the Centennial News.
This first image is of the artist in front of a wall which has been plastered and has a sketch of a figure by the artist. The greatest challenge in this was cleaning up the image while still having Ciampaglia look integrated with the background. Here is the original image:
Publicity photo of Carlo Ciampaglio in front of a sketch for an Agriculture Building mural, 1936.
First, I cropped the image. Next, I adjusted the curves for maximum white. Since the plaster would have been white, I left it white. I used the eraser tool to remove the gray areas. I created a layer for adding the coloring, and using a low opacity, colored in the figure of the artist. Following Professor Petrik's advice, I softened the hard line of his figure and added a shadow behind him on the wall to help him stand out less against the background. Here is the final image:
Restored photo, 2010.
Next, I created a vignette of this image. I cropped the image to smaller size. Using the elliptical marquee tool, I created an oval, filled it with gray (white didn't show, and black seemed to harsh), and then used Gaussian blur to soften the edges. Here is the result:
Restored photo with vignette, 2010.
For the next image, I followed the same initial steps as with the previous image. (Curves, color layer, hand coloring) Here is the originial:
Publicity photo of Carlo Ciampaglia at work on an Agriculture Building mural, 1936.
I tried to match the color with the color of the mural paint. For the color of his clothes, I looked up 1930's fashion, and felt that these colors would have been in keeping with the fashion of the time. Here is the final image:
Restored photo, 2010.
The next two images I worked on were of printed text documents I had taken photos of.
This first image is a letter from the Chief Artchitect of the Centennial regarding murals. As you can see, it is quite yellowed, there are water damage spots and other discolorations, a black spot at the bottom of the page, and a signature that has been damaged by liquid:
Inter-Office communication from George Dahl, Chief Architect of the Texas Centennial Exposition, 1935.
My first step was to adjust the curves, increasing the contrast. Nest, I adjusted the image to black and white, with maximum white. I again adjusted the curves. I added a white background layer, and used the eraser tool to perform all of the clean up. I used a very small eraser and had the image very zoomed-in when I touched up the signature. Here is what I got:
Restored inter-office communication, 2010.
Finally, here is a newspaper clipping from the Centennial Exposition Newspaper. It showis Ciampaglia at work on a mural.
Clipping from T"he Centennial News" announcing the completion of the Centennial Murals, featuring a photo of Ciampaglia at work on a mural in the Poultry Building,1936.
I began by doing a considerable amount of cropping. I matted the image onto a white background. I adjusted the curves and played a bit with the contrast. Finally, I used the reaser tool to even out the area surrounding the image. Here is the result:
Restored clipping, 2010.