Scholarship on the Web: Matting Engravings & Line Art

The “blending” technique employed in Adobe Photoshop cannot be used in Elements, but there is a way to replace color. Like most software applications, Adobe Elements supports a number of different ways of approaching a problem and an equal number of techniques. This tutorial uses the “menu” approach as opposed to the “keyboard command” strategy for sake of simplicity. If you are comfortable using keyboard commands, substitute accordingly.

Download (288.25 K) “Scholarship on the Web: Editing Engravings: Matting: Elements” in PDF Format

1Our first task is to crop the image and correct the color. But before tackling the image, be sure that the Layer (Choose Window > Layers) and History (Choose Window > History) palettes open and accessible and that your tools are handy. At this juncture, it’s also advisable to tend to housekeeping and create a folder for your images and a file-naming regimen. For those using the tutorial image, select an area on the image that includes the woman and text but excludes the black border. The key to cropping is to crop closely, focusing on the center of interest in the image.

  1. Choose Open > File.
  2. Select the Crop Tool.
  3. Click and drag to select an area.
  4. Press RETURN or ENTER.
  5. Select Image > Adjust > Auto Color Correction.
  6. Select Image > Adjust > Auto Contrast.
  7. Select Image > Adjust > Auto Levels.

2Step 2 in PS ElementsOK. Now we’ll put in the new background and set up the image for editing. For our purposes of this exercise, the new background will be white.

  1. Double-click the name of the “Background” layer.
  2. Type “main” in the dialogue box.
  3. Click OK.
  4. Choose Layer > New > Layer.
  5. Type “bkgd” in the dialogue box.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Choose Layer > New > Layer.
  8. Type “transparency” in the dialogue box.
  9. Click OK.

3 Step 3A in PS Elements Step 3B in PS Elements We’re ready to the major work on the image. It’s good to remember at this juncture that replacing color is not an exact science. Experimentation is necessary to achieve the best results, and each image requires its own treatment. Practice also helps.

  1. Click on the “Main” layer.
  2. Choose Enhance > Adjust Color > Replace Color.
  3. Set the Fuzziness slider to 40.
  4. Click on the background of the image.
  5. Drag the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness to the far right.
  6. Use the Add to Sample button to add an additional color. (Usually clicking on a darker color produces the best result.)
  7. Move the Fuzziness slider to the right to add to the range of the color selection.

Both the background of the dialogue box image and the background of the main image should turn white. And by adjusting the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness sliders, you can change the background color to one of your choosing or match a background color. (For example, a setting of 20, 100, 60 yields a light yellow background.) You may also need to use the Magnify and Paint Brush or Eraser tools to touch up the image, especially around the text boundary of the image.

4Step 4 in PS ElementsTime to resize the image. Note the dimensions and resolution of your image. If you are using the “Home Guard,” you’ll not that it has been scanned at a very high resolution—far too high for a web image.

  1. Choose Image > Resize Image.
  2. Type 72 in the Resolution area of the dialogue box.
  3. Select Percent from the pull down menu.
  4. Type 50 in the Height or Width.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Choose Layer > Flatten Image.
  7. Click OK.

5Step 5 in PS ElementsSince the image has lost some data in the down sampling process, it has become a bit blurry. We’ll restore some of the detail by using the Unsharp Mask filter.

  1. Choose Image > Resize Image.
  2. Type 72 in the Resolution area of the dialogue box.
  3. Select Percent from the pull down menu.
  4. Type 50 in the Height or Width.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Choose Layer > Flatten Image.
  7. Click OK.

6Step 6 in PS ElementsThe last step involves preparing the image for the Web. Note that it is still possible to reduce the quality setting of the image markedly and still achieve excellent results—and a small image.

  1. Choose File > Save for Web.
  2. Select GIF or JPEG from the drop down menu.
  3. Adjust colors and quality.
  4. JPEG
  5. Low
  6. Optimized
  7. Quality=20
  8. Click OK.

The image can be either a JPEG or a GIF, although engravings turn out best as JPEG, given the fine lines that comprise an engraving. Creating a GIF requires making the white portions of the image transparent. Selecting and deleting the white portions of the image invariably destroys some of the fine lines and detail. For this reason, it is advisable to matte an image to a background color or texture before importing it into an HTML editor.

There are some images that that are so damaged that they will resist this approach. It’s important to gauge whether or not an image is worth the extra time and effort. Severely mutilated images can be resurrected, but the work is painstaking and detailed, involving the selection tool, multiple blends or color replacements, and pixel-based editing. From time to time, historians also want to put facsimiles of text sources on the Web. These are among the most difficult images to work with, and a good result ultimately depends on the condition of the original and the quality of the scan. Just so you know what you might be getting into.