Image Help - - At Grips with Engraving.

chris h · #1 01-09-2002, 06:18 PM

I've repaired old Victorian prints in the past but have never been happy with the results. These were taken from etched plates and appeared in framed form before photography took off in the late 19 century. The attachment is a joke submission from a Salon thread. What I'm getting at is how would you give the coloured insert the engraved look of the rest of the dollar bill. Thoughts anybody ?

thomasgeorge · #2 01-09-2002, 06:40 PM

You might try this:
(1) create a new blank palette
(2) fill with 50% grey
(3) add noise--a fairly hefty amount
(4) apply motion blur at 0 angle or whatever angle the engraving lines should run.
(5) tweak levels to get the tone needed
(6) drag and drop the new image onto the photo or whatever you want to add lines to and fiddle with blending modes to get the right look...probably overlay to start. Tom

DJ Dubovsky · #3 01-09-2002, 09:00 PM

OK I tried some things and here is the best I could do.
Selected center and copied to new layer
Desaturate and then Hue/ Sat and check color. Then adjust hue and saturation to match coloring of bill.
Levels to sharpen the contrast
Copy layer
Filter>Sketch> Conte' Crayon
Foreground level = 14
Background level = 10
Texture = canvas
Scaling = 9 %
Relief = 4
Light Direction = Top
Lower layer opacity to about 60% or until it looks right. I could have lowered it more but I left it high so you could see the pattern created by the filter.

It's about the closest I could get to matching the engraving of the bill.
DJ

kathleen · #4 01-09-2002, 10:53 PM

the commercial sounds kind of like this:
come on down to dj's for all your counterfeitting needs!

chris h · #5 01-10-2002, 05:55 AM

DJ,
Your third class rail ticket Florida-Manchester is in the post !

I've got a couple of Turner Engravings which I kick about I'll do battle with them again using both your suggestions.

Thanks

DJ Dubovsky · #6 01-10-2002, 12:08 PM

Third Class Rail!!! Sounds like I might get my feet wet crossing the Atlantic that way.

I would think with my engraving talents, I should at least rate a seat in the club car instead of strapped to the cow catcher.

Kathleen
Do you have change for a hundred?

DJ

chris h · #7 01-12-2002, 01:33 PM

I'm afraid on the final leg of the trip no cowcatchers are fitted to UK engines you'll have to make do with the buffers !

DJ Dubovsky · #8 01-12-2002, 02:01 PM

Oh good, at least they sound like they are more padded.

Why no cow catchers in England? Don't want to catch a mad cow?

OK bad joke.

So have you tried engraving any new Euro bills yet?
DJ

chris h · #9 01-14-2002, 06:28 PM

Euro bills !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we'll stick to the £ if you don't mind. I'm afraid my view of the European community is somewhat predjudiced especially when every Banana republic east of Berlin wants to join !

DJ Dubovsky · #10 01-14-2002, 07:53 PM

Never could figure out how they pulled that one off. Besides Britian, who else opted out of Euro bucks?
DJ

Tim_S · #11 01-30-2002, 01:52 AM

I realize this post is a bit stale, but if you are still looking...

I'm not sure if a commercial plug-in would be acceptable, but Andromeda Software makes two plug-ins that might work for you. One is called the Screens Filter, and the other is the Cutline Filter. Both give variations on the engraved, mezzotint, or wood cut style from grayscale (or should that be greyscale; ah, well two cultures separated by a common language).

--tks

Doug Nelson · #12 01-30-2002, 08:34 AM

No stale threads here

In fact, I wish more people would read back to find interesting older threads that petered out for one reason or another.

DJ Dubovsky · #13 01-30-2002, 09:09 AM

Tim
Thanks for the interesting url. I was just checking it out and it looks like there's alot of neat filters to check out.
DJ

PHI · #14 01-30-2002, 10:24 AM

Here's a simple approach. I use WinImages but you should be able to do it in photoshop or PSP:

Isolate the image (the face). I cut it out and put it on it's own layer (which is probably where you have it anyway, eh?)

I put a base underneath the hole where the face was that is the color of the bill background.

I converted the face layer to monochrome and increased the contrast 100%

I ran WinImage's "Derivative" operator on it, signed on gray and multiply level 2. This is a pretty vanilla math function, you should be able to find a plugin that does it freeware or maybe photoshop already has it. This gets you the lines where the engraving cut would be.

I set the face layer to multiply. Now the lines modify the base color underneath. Looks decent, though you either need a sharper scan of the bill, or softening of the face.