Civil War Photos

[hauckra]

I have done some experimenting and am pleased with some of my photos, however, I would like to get some variety of photos looking like they were taken during the civil war era. This would include white specks, black splotches, blurred edges, irregular black edges, etc. I have looked for ways in which to accomplish this and have not been successful at this.

Currently, I am using the following to varying degrees: Sepia Toning/Black and White, Blur, Salt and Pepper noise, and Vignette.

Any suggestions from those who are far more knowledgeable than I would be greatly appreciated.

Follow up:

My Bad, I did fail to mention that I have PSP 5

[Kathy_9]

You didn't mention which version of PSP you are using but I think the Time Machine has been around for a number of versions.

Take a look under Effects -> Photo Effects -> Time Machine.

You might find something there that suits you.

[photodrawken]

I would like to get some variety of photos looking like they were taken during the civil war era.

You mean like this rare Civil War era tintype photograph of a member of the Chicago Blackhawks Ice Crew?

The first thing to do is look for sample images -- Daguerrotypes, Ambrotypes and Tintypes could all be considered "Civil War era" photographs. I went with tintype because it was the most popular image type after 1860.

The most important feature of these old photographs to capture is their response to visible light. Forget about streaks, blotches and so on -- those are trivial "distressed" artifacts caused by physical damage through the years.

So, because tintypes were not sensitive to red wavelengths, you need to convert the colour image:

Blackhawks Ice Crew 04 original.png (225.95 KiB) Viewed 3321 times

to black & white so that red colours are almost black. Use the Channel Mixer to do that by setting the Red percentage to -17%, Green to 29% and Blue to 81%.

The other characteristic about tintypes is that there are no pure whites, so I used a Fill Light/Clarity adjustment to reduce the Clarity to -26.

After that, I used a Highlights/Midtones/Shadows adjustment to lighten the midtones, and a Brightness/Contrast adjustment to slightly boost the contrast. All in an effort to match the overall effect seen in samples of tintype images.

I also applied a vignette to mimic the characteristics of the lenses of that era.

After all that, it was a matter of adding some slight distressing:
1. Add a new raster layer and fill it with black.
2. Add some Gaussian noise to the layer.
3. Apply a motion blur to that layer.
4. Set the blend mode of the layer to "Screen".
5. Add another new raster layer filled with black.
6. Add some Gaussian noise to the layer.
7. To add randomness to that noise, add a mask to the layer and apply a KPT Noize effect to the mask. This will show the Gaussian noise only in areas where the mask is white or gray. Set the blend mode of this layer group to "Screen".

Finally, I added a picture frame, using the Daguerrotype frame.

The layers wound up looking like this:

[hauckra]

Thanks for the detailed steps photodrawken on making civil war photos, that is was I really needed as I have used the time machine (my bad for not mentioning that). While I am happy with what I was getting, I am new at this with PSP5 and am pleased with the ease of use of this program, however, I felt like there was a touch missing in the photos. I belong to a Civil War re-enactment group, so there are allot of photos taken during meetings with other groups. The reason for the distressed photos is just to add a bit of variety or interest so that they all do not look exactly alike. I am hoping/trying to hone my skill with the Civil War type photos as several of the members do like some of the shots that have been taken in period type photos.

Before I should forget, thanks for the inclusion of the photo as I do remember seeing that in some book when I was a kid and have never come across it again, even though I have been very diligent in my searches. I now have definitive proof that they did indeed have big scoop shovels back then.

[photodrawken]

hauckra,
Glad to help.

You should get great results from photos taken during the reenactments because of the accuracy of the period dress, etc. As long as you nail the B&W colour conversion and tonal range of the image, it'll look like a period photograph. Adding some distressing will definitely support that look. There are probably a lot of tutorials on the Web about distressing photos....

P.S., Yeah, it's hard to believe she's over 150 years old. Doesn't look a day over 125.