Thread: Australiana

I'd go with the second one. It is straight and the neon pops a little more.

2nd one for me as well.

SWK

PS I'd never heard of the skipping girl before. Had to go away and google her. Not convinced she is "Australiana" but definitely "Victoriana" or more precisely Melbourniana" ) Definitely a worthy historical subject though.

Little Audrey is definitely is a piece of Australian history. Wasn't she recently renovated to her former glory?

Great shots anyway John. If you could straighten the first image, I'd go for that one. It's a little more 'crisp' than the second.

Well done

They're both the same image, one straightened, one not. The trouble with the straightened image is that the V in vinegar is very close to the edge and I might lose part of it when I mount the picture in a matt.

Originally Posted by Grumpy John

They're both the same image, one straightened, one not.

I need to put my glasses on

Nice image. Perhaps if you will loose some of her anyway you could play with the cropping even more? Some things are so recognizable you can be pretty minimal with them and still have them recognizable I don't mind her crooked. A neon sign would rarely be seen straight anyway. Have you got any even more crooked? Can you frame it through a matt the shape of a Torana car window? I use to see that sign coming home from the trip to the cousins place in geelong. Always the sign of "nearly home" seen through sleepy eyes through the window at the traffic lights. (Not that we had a Torana. But a Morris doesn't strike me as very Australian. :P )

little audrey_0007.jpg


You can clone in as much additional background as you want. Just be careful to match the blacks as they will be tinted so to speak by the glow of the neon and not be 100% black. Then you can mat the image without loosing your image detail.

Also clone from the original then rotate and crop. I don't think the Text and the horizontals in the frame are at 90 deg to the vertical in the frame so you may need to decide which is more dominant to the eye. I have the text straight here and it still looks like it isn't straight so maybe the vertical line is more dominant.

Originally Posted by DSEL74

little audrey_0007.jpg


You can clone in as much additional background as you want. Just be careful to match the blacks as they will be tinted so to speak by the glow of the neon and not be 100% black. Then you can mat the image without loosing your image detail.

Also clone from the original then rotate and crop. I don't think the Text and the horizontals in the frame are at 90 deg to the vertical in the frame so you may need to decide which is more dominant to the eye. I have the text straight here and it still looks like it isn't straight so maybe the vertical line is more dominant.

Okay, how did you do this. I'm only just learning Photoshop.

I have worked as a retoucher, but still only know 10% of photoshop there are just so many ways to do things. If you ever want to come around for a bit of a lesson happy to show you a few things.

Ok what I did was first go under the IMAGE menu and select CANVAS SIZE, I increased the canvas by 30% in both directions to keep the original proportions.
Screen shot 2013-07-16 at 11.14.26 AM.pngScreen shot 2013-07-16 at 11.15.00 AM.png

At this point you will have a white border around your background layer.

Next select the CLONE STAMP tool, the icon looks like a small rubber stamp, I think it is 9th down the menu or just pressing S key my work as a hot key and select it for you. In the image below it is selected so slightly darker grey

Screen shot 2013-07-16 at 11.14.09 AM.png

Once you have the Stamp tool selected adjust you brush size [ key is smaller ]Key is larger or use the brush sliders your used to. Also leave the clone settings as they are to start with so not to complicate it. (Mode:Normal, Opacity & Flow: 100, CURRENT LAYER ETC.)


Holding down the ALT key will change the cursor to a small target, move the mouse to the desired target sample and click, now move the mouse to the distance where you wish to clone the image to (Paint in the target sample) Click and brush in the image.

Screen shot 2013-07-16 at 11.25.11 AM.png

For best results click multiple sample areas to clone from so that the background matches but doesn't show any repeating patterns


Double click on your background layer and rename it.
Under VIEW, turn on rulers if you don't already have them, click on the ruler and drag out a blue line, place it over the image near the edge of the text or vertical in the image and release the mouse. Under VIEW, SHOW, make sure guides is ticket as on.
Screen shot 2013-07-16 at 11.32.09 AM.jpg

IMAGE, Adjustments, Transform, or I think it is CTRL+T on PC to transform
ROATE the image from the corner, the cursor should become an arc with arrow tips. Align the image element with the cyan/blue line and release the mouse, hit enter.

CROP the image to show the desired amount plus a margin for matting (minimum 5mm under mat) Use archival mount and tape).


Presto done. Now that took me way longer to explain than it did to do!!!

Thanks for the quick PS lesson. Sending PM.

I've also worked as a retoucher and probably know a similar 10% of PS as DSEL74. Got a few tricks up my sleeve, pretty good with masks, selections and stuff. Mainly worked in CMYK mode but can make my way around RGB. Happy to offer help, got a bit of time on my hands at the mo, get it while it's hot