I've been playing around enhancing rug photographs in Photoshop. My son Shane, the shop dyer, is fairly proficient with the software and he's giving me a few pointers for the basics. I usually take photographs of our rugs by standing on a chair and looking straight down but if things aren't quite right I just do a bit of warping and it corrects the odd angles.
 Geometric Jewels designed and hooked by Mary Doig. (Can be viewed on Mary's Pattern page and comes in two sizes.) This photo was taken from the left side, not straight down so the right side becomes narrow as it goes off into the distance.....like a country road, it appears narrower as it gets farther away. |  Same picture but enhanced with Photoshop technology. The trick is to pull the rug both up and down on the right top and bottom corners without distorting the inner squares. It takes a bit of finesse but I'm getting better with practice. |
 Bullseye adapted from Geometric Tiles designed by Sue Cunningham. (Pattern Geometric Tiles is on Sue's Pattern Page.) It appears the picture was taken out on her deck while standing on the left side, giving just enough distortion so it does not show as a true rectangle as the actual rug. Note: Lots of photo editing programs will crop pictures but that leaves sharp, perfectly angled corners. Using photoshop you can cut out the image exactly as the rug appears, slightly rounded on the whipped corners. You never want to take away from the hand crafted look by sharply cutting the corners. |  Same rug, but pulled on the right side, both at the top and bottom to square it off into a rectangle. I also did automatic colour contrast to brighten the colours.. Sometime pictures taken in sunlight slightly bleach the image. I also removed the background deck by making it transparent. I still have a lot more tricks to learn under Shane's tutelage, but I'm having fun perfecting what I already know. |
RSS Feed
