PainShop Pro Scripting - Vintage Postcard Script

Author

Vintage Postcard Script

Spandex Rutabaga

2006-07-10, 7:46 pm

Over in the Photography newsgroup I asked Nightingail how she did
her vintage postcard effect. She replied in some detail but I wasn't
always able to follow quite why she did the things she did. As a
result, I cooked up a script which runs silently but afterwards
allows you to tweak the effect by manipulating labeled layers. I
like the script but it may not be what Nightingail prefers and
you may or may not like it. Below I have cut and pasted the main
elements of her procedure and I have noted what I did differently
in the script and why. Obviously without her input I would never
have come up with the script so I am very grateful for the
explanations she provided.

Nightingail wrote:

> I tried to come up with an exact recipe, and I'll list the steps I used for
> the attached Before and After pictures.

> My point is, I tried to come up with the same *exact* look on
> photos from other places using the same steps I used for this, and found
> that I couldn't do it without trial-and-error steps, mainly with Curves and
> HSL adjusments, that differ for each source photo.

I used your ideas and came up with a different (and I think simpler)
approach which should still allow you to tweak, but after the fact.

> 1. Run the script Sketch Gail1.

The purpose of this seems to be to make a black and grey sketch
on a white background. Edges > Find All in PSP 9 onwards does
that so I used this built-in command. Since the PSP 9 command is
a JPEG block detector I run JPEG Artifact Removal before finding
the edges. The resulting Sketch layer is set to a blend mode of
Multiply so it is a modifier for the original image and the white
background has no effect. The opacity of the Sketch layer can be
tweaked after the fact.

[Note: Prior to PSP 9 Edges > Find All used a different calculation
and gave white on black results. The old behavior is in a script
called Find all edges (legacy) and actually runs the User Defined
Filter. If you use this approach you will need a Negative Image
step after the Find All. You may also need to tweak the gamma of
the edge image. You could just insert the steps from Gail's Sketch
script into my script instead.]

> 2. Make sure the top layer is active, Copy-Merged, then Undo the script
> (including what you did after running it). Paste the new layer on top of the
> background layer.

I don't like steps that commit you to one setting early in the
process so I skipped it. However, I found lightening the original
image (against which the Sketch layer is blended) is a good thing.
I did this with a Levels adjustment layer above the original and
below the edge layer. This can also be tweaked after the fact,
either by changing the gamma from my value to to some other or
simply by lowering the opacity of the Levels layer.

> 3. You may or may not want to adjust the opacity of this layer. If you do,
> then do another Copy-Merged, paste as new layer, but *don't undo* anything
> from here on. (The reason for not undoing is so that you can go back and
> make various changes if desired. Since I use trial-and-error a lot when I
> work, I generally find this to be an easier way of making changes than using
> the selective undo function).

I skipped all this. However, at this point I applied the yellowing
that Gail prescribes. Instead of using Black and White Points,
which requires commitment to specific settings by merging, I
converted the color adjustment to equivalent settings in a Curves
adjustment layer above the Sketch layer.

> 4. On the top layer, apply the Unsharp Mask. Radius 1, Strength 500,
> Clipping 0, Luminance checked.

Sharpening at any pixel depends on the surrounding pixels so you
can't do it except on a merged image. To defer the commitment to
prior settings that merging represents I first added an H/S/L
adjustment layer to increase saturation.

Only after this did I do a Copy Merged, Paste As New Layer and USM
with Gail's settings. To tweak the effect only this step would
have to be repeated after changes in the layer stack below. Since
the Copy Merged and USM layer is not used at full opacity even
that may not be needed.

> 5. The next step is to adjust the contrast, again 'to taste', and it can be
> done in any way you like.

I skipped all this. The Levels layer and potentially the Curves
layer I already added can do all this. However, if you really
want an independent way to adjust contrast add a Curves or Levels
(or even a Brightness/Contrast) adjustment layer above the H/S/L
adjustment layer before executing the Copy Merged and USM cited
in the previous step.

> 6. On the dup layer, use the Black and White points preset called.

I found it even without a name :) As explained earlier it was
already applied in a previous step.

> 7. Adjust the opacity of this layer. I used about 60.

Skipped because step 6 was skipped.

> 8. The next steps are fine tuning, and the word "exact" really becomes
> meaningless. Sorry, I'm trying. I've been working on this for about 2 hours
> now. Yep, I'm slow with this kind of thing ;-) Ok, so what you need to do
> now is to adjust the contrast with a Curves layer to what you think looks
> good. Then do the same with an HSL adjustment layer.

I'm really confused by this for several reasons. First, I have
no criterion for "goodness" of contrast. In other words I don't
know what I am trying to achieve and personally I don't think
there is a lot bad with what I've done already :) Second, I don't
understand why Curves - the most powerful and flexible way of
adjusting global contrast - is followed by additional adjustment
of contrast with H/S/L, which frankly is a clunker for this
purpose. There are already five things going on so these kinds
of extra complications I skipped.

> You will most likely
> need to take the Saturation up quite a bit, and possibly change the settings
> of some of the individual colors.

I already did this in step 4 and you can go back and tweak.

> 9. Resize down to what your final image size is going to be. If it looks too
> sharp for your purposes, then you can do an overall softening using whatever
> method you prefer, for example: Copy-Merged and Paste as new layer. Apply a
> small radius Gaussian blur to this layer and take the opacity way down until
> it suits you.

I've encapsulated my steps in a script. It seems to work well on
images in the roughly 1000 x 1000 pixel size range. In other words
I suggest resizing down from 12 megapixels (or something more
modest that you are using) before running the script. Everything
will go faster.

> I realize that the steps in this write-up might not seem completely logical,
> so if anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to ask ;-)

They are a bit much for me to get my head around since I'm never
quite sure what the purpose of each step is. Accordingly I've
changed things around into a script based as much as possible on
adjustment layers and layers with adjustable opacity so you can
just run the script and fine tune without having to do lots of
undoing, copy merging and what have you.

The script is attached. Unzip it to your Scripts-Restricted folder.
It's worked fairly well on images I tried it on. Blue sky and
man-made objects, preferably lighter in color, with rectilinear
detail seem to be good elements to have in the picture when applying
the script. If used on images with vegetation, the leaves need to
be big enough that there is room for their edges (i.e. trees should
not be too distant) and the vegetation should fill only part of the
image. Water doesn't have to be present in the image. Sometimes it's
good to have. If present without some of the features I mentioned,
water isn't going to do you any good as far as creating the
impression of an old postcard is concerned.

It might be good to add a step of creating a yellowed border around
the image but in my opinion that's best done separately. You can
just drag the Curves adjustment layer onto the border image to do
the yellowing.

I'll post some example images at default settings in some follow-up
posts.

Spandex Rutabaga

2006-07-10, 7:46 pm

Spandex Rutabaga wrote:

> I'll post some example images at default settings in some follow-up
> posts.

All of the images were created at default settings. Some of the
later ones had JPEG artifacts in the sky originally that are
captured by PSP's Find All Edges approach. In those cases lowering
the opacity of the Sketch layer would have been a good idea though
this wasn't done.

Spandex Rutabaga

2006-07-10, 7:46 pm

Spandex Rutabaga wrote:

> I'll post some example images at default settings in some follow-up
> posts.

By the way, these are all images that I've posted previously
without the vintage postcard effect.

Spandex Rutabaga

2006-07-10, 7:46 pm