On this page, I will demonstrate my abilities using Adobe Photoshop to restore and retouch historical photographs. I have selected a few photographs related to my current research on urban renewal in Washington, D.C. during the 1950s. As of this writing, I am currently developing a website on this topic, so I will be sharing my research interests with you as I illustrate the practical and theoretical applications of Photoshop to historians.
Cropping and Resizing
My forthcoming website will discuss the redevelopment of Southwest Washington, DC, which involved the demolition of decrepit slums, and construction of federal office buildings, modern housing, and the Southwest-Southeast Freeway. A quick search for public-domain images on this topic yields work from the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), an extensive, publicly funded photography project. While many of the Washington, DC HABS photos focus on architecture, one landscape particularly catches my eye. This 1991 photo captures modern Southwest D.C. – vertical housing, large federal offices, and the intricate freeway. (The perspective – from the 10th Street overpass – also has a personal significance for me, since I’ve often driven home from the National Archives building entering the freeway in this area.)
The Library of Congress catalog offers two digitized versions of this photo, one 89KB .jpeg and one 14MB .tiff. The latter is obviously too massive to put on my web page. The former is very high quality and large in dimension despite its
Unedited 89K version of HABS photo in Southwest Washington, D.C., 1991low file size. It would be suitable for my site. However, I would lose so much of the intricate detail in the .tiff. For example, I would love my readers to see “U.S. Capitol” on the freeway exit sign. So I have decided to use Photoshop to tweak my images and get exactly the illustration I want. Two basic Photoshop functions – cropping and resizing – can help me achieve this.
First, I open the massive .tiff and make a more selective .tiff. I focus on one side of the highway and frame two large residential buildings. I’m cropping out the federal office building, but the signs reading “The House” and “US Senate” are now visible to the naked eye. By placing more importance on housing here, I hope to add a more human element to my story while still placing the story of urban renewal in the context of the nation’s capital:
Even after cropping out a large amount of the original .tiff, my photo dimensions and file size are still quite large. By using Photoshop’s “Save for Web & Devices” function, I resize the cropped area to 1/3 of the height and width dimensions, then save the file as a .jpeg with maximum quality. The result is a much more palatable 96K version that allows me to emphasize certain aspects of the original over others.
Photo Restoration
Another search on the Library of Congress website for images of Washington, D.C. urban history uncovers an interesting photo of D.C. slums. Slum removal was a primary goal of the city’s federally-led urban renewal programs. This photo is a vivid depiction of alley housing and it includes a glimpse of the U.S. Capitol building in the skyline. Unfortunately, it is also extremely overexposed. Elements of this photo can be easily darkened by adding layers in Photoshop. By adding Curves and Brightness/Contrast layers, I can balance the lightest elements of the photo without darkening the rest of the photo. I have applied a second Curves layer to the Capitol dome in the background so it can be fully outlined as it looms over this alley scene:
Before and After: Original and Restored Washington, D.C. Alley Scene [undated]
Hand-Coloring
Black and white photos of these urban scenes can sometimes evoke a bleak mood. Coloring is most useful for digital historians who want to create an artistic look for something like a site banner. But to demonstrate my capacity in hand-coloring black and white photographs, I’ve chosen to breathe life into a seemingly drab urban scene in Southwest D.C.
I have again chosen a street scene from the Historic American Buildings Survey collection, and once more cropped and resized a small section of the photo. Nearly the entire photo is colored, with most of the original grayscale colors replaced
South Capitol Street, Washington, D.C., 1991by RGB values. The only objects that I did not color were some of the trees and some of the various blurry structures behind the trees to the left of the Capitol building.
In many respects, the new RGB colors maintain the dreary feel of an overcast winter day that comes across in the original. However, I’ve also tried to inject the colors I immediate see when I think of Washington, D.C., from the green of traffic signs and store awnings to the red brick of townhouses and the creamy grey of federal buildings. And I think that I’ve shown that even an overcast sky still emits a subtle shade of blue.
Colorized Version of South Capitol Street SceneVignetted Photographs
The topic of urban renewal is mostly a matter of government, organizations, and neighborhoods; individual actors do not weigh heavily on my research. But because I can use many illustrations on my history website, I will use opportunities to illustrate my text with portraits of prominent historical figures. The final two photographs that I will present are of Walter Washington, who worked for the National Capital Housing Authority (NCHA) during the 1950s and became its Executive Director in 1961. (Washington later first became the first mayor of D.C.). Because the NCHA worked to relocate District residents displaced by urban renewal, Washington is somewhat of a presence in my research, and I could use his portraits to illustrate my work.
Left to Right: Richard M. Nixon, Walter E. Washington, Benetta Washington, and Judge Edward A. Tamm, 1973This first photograph of Walter Washington is of the Mayor in the White House with President Richard Nixon after being sworn in for his second term in 1973. The original photo includes the Mayor’s wife, Benetta Washington, and Judge Edward A. Tamm. Yet for me, the focal point remains is the firm handshake between Washington and President Nixon. Cropping around this part of the photo makes the image even more striking.
Now an Intimate Scene: Mayor Washington with President NixonTo achieve this vignette, I’ve selected the elliptical area with the marquee tool and cropped the rectangular area around it. I then inverted this selected ellipse and added two gradient layers to the selected area (one at 0 and another at 180 degrees). I then adjusted the blending amount on the Layer Style menu. This last step tamed the gradient effects, which can sometimes be rather extreme or exaggerated. As a result, the vignette photograph suggests a connection or rapport between Nixon and Washington because it is closely cropped; the faded margins ensure that the viewer still can see important elements such as the U.S. flag and Washington’s left arm.
Matted Images
Walter E. Washington [undated]This second photograph of Walter Washington is perhaps more appropriate as a portrait in any of my history writing for the web. The earlier photo places him with President Nixon, associating him with the 1970s and Washington’s work as Mayor instead of housing in the 1950s. This picture of Washington by himself is more suitable. This photograph is dark and also has a dark background; Washington is somewhat lost in the backdrop. Cutting him out and matting him against a solid color may get us a better image.
To create a matted version of this photograph, I
Matted Portrait of Mayor Washingtonhave cut Walter Washington’s head and shoulders by selecting them very slowly with the magnetic lasso tool. (This was imperfect, so the task also required using a paintbrush around the face to erase the remains of the curtain; I also used the Blur tool around Washington’s outline to make the juxtaposition less jarring.) I then inverted the selection and added a solid color layer. I looked for a grayscale color from the original photo (using the eyedropper tool) and then added a little bit of red to add more dimension. Since Washington is looking upwards in the original, I put him at eye level by rotating the figure five degrees counterclockwise. Then I selected his figure again and added a Curves layer to lighten different sides of his face.
This matting technique can also be useful for an engraving. Although I enjoy this engraving – the vast amount of cleared space reminds the viewer that Capitol Hill was built nearly from scratch – one could conceivably want to remove the frolicking citizens and domesticated animal from the foreground.
U.S. Capitol, 1827
For this matted engraving, I selected the skyline and foreground and created two new solid color layers of a grayish sky blue. I then altered the blending options to make this effect more subtle. Since the figures in the foreground were still visible, I blurred and smudged them, used a pattern stamp and brush to brush over them using the same sky blue color, and then made a final crop:
Matted Engraving of the U.S. Capitol