Bill, this is a really nice take on an aging image. I do have a few suggestions for you to take a look at and see what you think.
First, when using a wide angle lens you often get distortion in either vertical or horizontal lines. In this case, it looks like the top area of the rock is leaning backwards. First, you'll need to add a little canvas to the top of the image to give you a little more room up top. Then go to filter/distort/lens correct in Photoshop. Now go down to "transform" in the center of the display box and move the vertical slider to the left (try -25 and see what you think). This should help correc the "backwards" feel of the image.
Next, I'd look at taking the color of the image a little more towards a true sepia instead of this slightly "peach" tone. For a quick fix, desaturate the image a bit to get it back to a more neutral color and then add a Sepia color over the top using a Photo filter adjustment layer.
I like your overall composition but think you could also go with cutting off the bush at the bottom and adding more canvas/sky area to the top. Both presentations would work here!
Thank you for the suggestions Julie. I will try them out. I haven't had much luck in adding canvas and getting it to look right. Can you point me to a tutorial that could give me some help here?
Julie,
I incorporated all the changes you suggest. The lens correction is -35 (could go a little more), added sky and cropped out the bush. Changed the color to a sepia filter. Now that I see it I would prefer a little more on the bottom. Where you objecting to the bush or the space? The canvas extension was easy using the method you pointed out. The contour aware scaling in CS4 also works well in this case. My problem with both methods is when there is no space between where you want to add and the object you would like to add space in front of or on top of etc. etc. Any thoughts on that? How do you like the result of your suggested changes.
Bill
Bill, for me, the bush was cut short and it made me look more at the edge of the frame than at the building above it. I like what you did but tried a different technique instead of just adding a photo filter I converted the image to grayscale and put a dark quadtone over the top of it to get it more into the "aged" look. I then added a High Pass filter round of sharpening over the top to crisp it up a bit.
The important thing is...how do YOU like the changes? Do you think they add to the image? Then that's all that matters!
This post now goes "out of the box", but I like this particular approach when I want an aged look for a photo. I used your latest post as a starting point and added a texture layer. This technique is one of Scot Kelby's "Down and Dirty Tricks".
Painted Hand Pueblo
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