Sometimes, I do favours…

A collegue found his fathers 1949 passport with original photograph attached. Because he has no other photos of his father, I offered to scan and edit the passport photo into a frameable format.

The brief: retain the ripped edges and sepia tones, but get rid of the purple stamp.

Edited photo and scanned passport original

There's an interesting background story. His father was just nine when he was put to work on a neighbouring farm. Payment was just one meal and a cigarette per day of work. At 15 he joined the Dutch Resistance, and at wars end, immigrated to New Zealand (hence the passport). During a stop-over in Rarotonga, he met his future wife.

I love the tie, and think this is definitely a case of "The eyes are the window to the soul", don't you?

Kārearea (New Zealand Falcon) take 2

Recently, I was asked to rate my ability in Photoshop. I gave myself a 7 to 8 out of 10. Later, I wished I'd explained the 'average' score was because I've seen the incredible artwork some designers are able to create in this software. But actually, what I do use Photoshop for - editing photographs - I think I do very successfully.

For example, I've been editing the Kārearea photograph I took last year. The edited image is on the left, the original on the right.

Subtle changes (ok, I did clone in a new eye!) but a much improved image, am I right?