Digitizing Photos for Pop In Applique Books

 

Here's how I've been digitizing the applique designs

for my Pop In Applique source books.

Original photo of a detail from an applique sampler

dated 1851. Pattern is regional yet common, found in New York and

adjacent areas.

#28.44 in my Encyclopedia of Applique (page 101)

First I "posterize" the picture in Photoshop,

which sharpens it up somewhat.

There may be a way to do this automatically but

I eliminate the color variations manually with the

erase tool, mainly because it's relaxing and I enjoy

doing it---like a coloring book.

Under filters there is a tool to "Sharpen," which

can add a black line around the shapes.

And here is the digitized picture on page 2 of Volume 2 of Pop In Applique.

Now that it's digitized I can pop it into a structure of some kind. Although it generally set all alone I put it in a simple wreath using "Duplicate Layers."

Hmmm. Better on the diagonal?

More balanced.

New idea for traditional pattern.