Photo “De-Restoration”
With all the hoop-la about photo restoration, I thought I would go against the grain and do something different.
We’ve all seen the old photos of grandma and grandpa at their wedding, or uncle Ted at the birthday party. These photos have probably been sitting in a box up in the attic without the proper protection, and have all but been destroyed.
Then we’ll see them restored back to their original state, or sometimes even better with added color and effects.
But what about those photos that haven’t yet made it to “vintage” status? Well, I pulled up a few of my photos from the Army and decided to go try the process backwards – making newer photos look much older.
I chose the military photos because they just seem to fit the style I was after, but you could do this with any photo.
Here I am sitting in the back of my Bradley Fighting Vehicle after a
long day of training.
I used a combination of effects to achieve the look. I first applied an old photo look to them using an Alien Skin Exposure 2 filter.
Here I am again with the ammo I was going to fire downrange.
I used the Black and White filter and chose an effect under the “Early Photography” folder. If the effect wasn’t exactly what I wanted, I just played with it until I was happy.
This one is of a Bradley rolling down the trail.
After I got the look I wanted with the photo, I took it into PhotoFrame 4 to apply the frame. This is one great plugin for Photoshop!
It was actually a little difficult deciding on which frame I wanted to use, but I finally settled on what you see here.
A couple of soldiers waiting on the Blackhawk.
So you see, you don’t always have to make photos look brand new and modern. With just a little creativity and experimentation you can make a totally good photo into one that’s in need of some restoration!
If you’d like to know how I did this, I’d be willing to put together a tutorial. Just let me know!