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.
UPDATE:
I decided I wasn't having all that much fun erasing paint colors manually so I decided to learn something new in Photoshop everyday (canceling subscription to WaPo, not watching news etc. frees up much time.) Learned the PaintBucket tool yesterday which changes color in one keystroke and also turns a color picture into an outline drawing if you fill it with white. Very efficient.
