digital storytelling - found ephemera
DESCRIPTION
This guide shows you several creative ways to incorporate your own family photos and ephemera in your family history projects. It offers scanning tips and includes the apps used in the demonstrations.TRANSCRIPT
StorytellingA MOULTRIE CREEK GUIDE
Found Ephemera
DIGITAL
in the guide . . .
LEMONADEMaking
CREATEAtmosphere
TouchPersonal
When you don’t have a photo from the period being discussed in your story, use filters and texture to age a 21st century image.
CREATEAtmosphereDuring World War II, my aunts lived in the upstairs apartment of the house you see on the right and I have some great stories about their time here. I want to include something visual to give those stories a sense of place, but a current photo just wasn’t right.
Then I discovered DistressedFX, an iPad app that creates atmosphere using textures. The result was amazing!
The transformation process began in iPhoto where I cropped the image, adjusted the color, then used the healing brush to remove some distracting modern conveniences like the street light and associated power lines.
Next I moved to the DistressedFX app and experimented with textures and overlays until I got the desired effect. Each effect could be fine-tuned by tapping the adjustments icon found in the lower right corner of the photo window.
RESOURCES
• DistressedFX [iOS - $0.99] Choose from a number of textures and overlays, then fine tune the effect to create beautiful, artistic images.
• No iPad? No problem! Distressed Textures offers both brushes and textures for use in Photoshop projects.
• Although the healing brush in iPhoto is quite adequate, you may prefer to use a more sophisticated photo-editor to remove unwanted elements in your photograph. Mac users will find Pixelmator [Mac - $29.99] a very affordable photo-editing option.
• Windows users will find PhotoPlus from Serif [about $70.00 at Amazon] and Corel’s PaintShop Pro [about $45.00 at Amazon] are interesting alternatives to Photoshop.
MakingLEMONADE
Sometimes the best photos aren’t always the best quality. What happens then? If you can’t edit the photo enough to improve its quality to acceptable levels, consider turning that photo into photo art. There are a growing number of applications which will process your photo into a broad range of artistic styles. This example turns a dull exposure into an impressive sketch.
These techniques are especially useful when you’re stuck with a low resolution photograph that you need to make bigger.
Created using PaintMee Pro for Mac
This is our granddaughter, Cecilia, enjoying some ice cream. We get to enjoy this delightful moment because her mother is never far away from her camera phone and regularly captures little events like this. For a mother of four, a camera phone that can capture and email a photo in two quick steps is the photo-sharing tool of choice. As grandparents, finding these precious pictures in our inbox brightens our day. For the family historian . . . not so much.
Fortunately, there are apps like Corel’s Paint It! which transform these small, low-resolution images into treasured works of art.
Poor lighting and an Instamatic camera left a lot to be desired in this 60s-era photo. Fortunately, today’s photo effects apps combine filters, textures and overlays to turn a mediocre picture into a delightful memory. This example was created by first using Pixelmator to punch up the lighting and colors, then moving to the DistressedFX app on my iPad to give it character.
RESOURCES
• PaintMee [Mac - $7.99] and PaintMee HD [iOS - $1.99] make it easy to turn a photo into a painting. Experiment with the various settings to get the effect you prefer.
• DistressedFX [iOS - $0.99] Choose from a number of textures and overlays, then fine tune the effect to create beautiful, artistic images.
• No iPad? No problem! Distressed Textures offers both brushes and textures for use in Photoshop projects.
• Corel Paint It! [Win/Mac - $39.95] not only transforms your photo into photo art, but lets you add your own personal touches too.
Mine your personal archives to create your own unique storytelling design elements.
TouchThe lace used to create the border you see on the right was found in my mother’s sewing box. The scrap in the box above is the envelope to a letter my grandmother sent her soon-to-be husband. Not only are these precious pieces of my family’s history, they make unique and personal design elements for my storytelling projects.
As you digitize your personal archives, take a few extra minutes in the scanning and editing process to prepare these items so they can also be used in your family stories. Here are some scanning and editing tips to help make it happen.
Personal
Open the scanned image in your favorite photo editor and use the magic wand selection tool to select the dark background. Delete the background and crop the image to leave just a small border of the now transparent background.
Save the results using the PNG image format. It is a non-destructive format that supports transparency. Also, if this item was originally scanned at “archival” resolution, you may want to resize it to a more manageable working resolution .
Envelope scanned with dark card stock behind it to create contrast.
Contrasting background has been selected and deleted, leaving just the envelope.
Placing a contrasting sheet of dark card stock behind the item you are scanning makes it easier to separate the image from the scanned background - especially when you want to maintain the creased and ragged edges. Black card stock is best because any shadows around the resulting image will disappear in to the black background. Here, even with a dark blue background, the shadows are visible.
More Scanning Tips . . .
There are times when a medium gray or blue card stock can be quite useful. When scanning newsprint, you’ll often find some of the text from the reverse side of the page shows through. A sheet of mid-tone gray placed behind the item often prevents that.
Explore the advanced features of your scanner’s software to get a feel for the different options and compare results.
If your photo-editing software supports scanning from within the app, experiment with its scanning features and compare them with the software that came with your scanner.
RESOURCES
• This technique takes advantage of the “magic wand” - a selection tool found in most photo editing applications. Mac users will find Pixelmator [$29.99] and Acorn [$29.99] are very affordable photo-editing options.
• Windows users will find PhotoPlus from Serif [about $70.00 at Amazon] and Corel’s PaintShop Pro [about $45.00 at Amazon] are interesting alternatives to Photoshop.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. For more information regarding this presentation contact me at http://moultriecreek.us or by email at [email protected].
Contact Info Denise Barrett Olson St. Augustine, Florida http://moultriecreek.us Twitter - @moultriecreek Email - [email protected]