No Los Olvido

(Remembrance 1)

The first two images are the two final photo collages. While the "base" photographs used in the collages are the same, each collage contains 3 unique photographs of my sisters as young children--the collages were created for my nieces and nephews. 

Following the collages are the individual photographs showing the original scans and the final corrected image (some intermediate work images are also shown). There is also a brief tutorial on working with scanned handwritten text. S

See also Remembrance 2 (will open in a new window) for the photo collage using images of my younger sister.

1. Image > Mode > Greyscale

2. Image > Mode > Duotone using a custom duotone of Ink1=EB8B23 (Sepia 1), Ink2=000000 (Sepia 2)

3. Image > Mode > RGB

4. Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer with Saturation=40%

Next, using the Magic Wand tool (Tolerance=15, Contiguous checked), I carefully selected the text ("Pedro", later "Octobre..." and "Recibe...") using the Shift key to add to the intial selection.

I then went into Quick Mask refining the selection creating a very tight selection mask.

In areas where part of a letter was missing, using the Eyedropper tool, I sampled existing text and using the Brush tool, I carefully filled in the missing letter area.

Each completed mask was saved (Select > Save Selection). The first time I did this, it took me about 40 minutes to get the mask I wanted; however, other text areas took me a much shorter time--about 10-15 minutes.

With the final mask loaded, I did a ctrl-j which put the selection on a new layer. I then changed the Blend mode of the new layer to Mulitply. See the final images below--note, the white areas are actually transparent in the working files.

"Receive (I send) this remembrance as a sign (show) of my love for you"

Using the intimate/familial you of "de tu" (vs. "usted"). Signed "Nanita"--my great-grandmother Maria Sans--and sent to her daughter Marianna Sans (my grandmother).

In general, the first step after scanning is to correct the yellowish color cast by placing 2 Color Sampler points--one where the image should be white and one where the image should be black. With the Info palette open (shows the RGB values for each sampler point) and using a Levels Adjustment layer, the white sample point is adjusted first by selected the channel with the lowest value and moving the white input level slider (rightmost Levels slider) so that it matches the channel with the highest value. The channel with the next lowest value is then selected and the process is repeated.

For the black sample point, the channel with highest value is selected and the black input slider (leftmost Levels slider) is moved so that it matches the channel with the lowest value. The channel with the next highest value is then selected and the process is repeated. I usually click "OK" and then add another Levels Adjustment layer to tweak the exposure because it gives me a bit more flexibility.

I then added a Channel Mixer Adjustment layer using the "monochrome" option to fully greyscale the image after checking individual channels in the Channels Palette to see which channel would be most useful as the base for the greyscale image. It did occur to me to just try using the Channel Mixer adjustment layer initially, bypassing the color cast removal, but I've found--for these images at least--the I get a better end result by removing the color cast and then using Channel Mixer. Also, for images that did not require a color cast removal, I used a Levels Adjustment layer to adjust the exposure before then using a Channel Mixer Adjustment layer to greyscale the image.

Once I have an acceptable greyscaled image, I then start cleaning the image using the Healing Brush (wonderful and indispensible tool!). I've shown a close-up of the before and after on the Pedro Sans image.

The last step in the process is to sepia tone the image using the same RGB > Greyscale > custom DuoTone > RGB mode conversion process described above when working with text. Generally, I sepia toned only the older images.

The final photocollage has a top layer which is a copy of the background layer (created via a custom pattern stamp from the back of the Pedro Sans cardback which was duplicated with the duplicated layer blend mode set to Multiply). This top layer's blend mode was set to Color, 50% opacity which gives an overall sepia tone to the entire image.

Left: My mother, Esther, and her brothers--Dominguin (left) and Octavio (right).

Below: My mother, Esther Alfonso, in her nurse's uniform--Ft. Knox in 1942.

Below: Maggie, my mother and Rita

Below: my sisters and myself--from left to right: Rita, Terrie, Mary and Maggie