Decayed Daguerreotypes. A selection of images from the Library of Congress found via the always excellent Ptak Science Books blog. The daguerreotype, invented by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in 1837, was the first commercially successful photographic process and was popular throughout the mid-19th century. Daguerreotype portraits were made by the model posing (often with head fixed in place with a clamp to keep it still the few minutes required) before an exposed light-sensitive silvered copper plate, which was then developed by mercury fumes and fixed with salts. This fixing however was far from permanent – like the people they captured the images too were subject to change and decay. They were extremely sensitive to scratches, dust, hair, etc, and particularly the rubbing of the glass cover if the glue holding it in place deteriorated. As well as rubbing, the glass itself can also deteriorate and bubbles of solvent explode upon the image. Quick Tip: Easily Create Seamless Photo Textures You can Tile.
Final Results Preview Tutorial Resources Metal Panel Photo Step 1 Open a photo that you want to turn into a texture. The easiest photos to use are the ones with the least lines, lens distortion, tilt, and differentiating colors. Here’s the photo that we’ll be using for this tutorial. Step 2 First, we need to get rid of the barrel distortion and vignette. Here’s our image with the lens correction applied. Step 3 If your texture has lines that stretches from one side to the other, like the vertical lines in our photo, you’ll need to use the Adaptive Wide Angle filter to align them so that they are perfectly horizontal/vertical.
Step 4 Select the Crop tool. Crop the transparent areas out of the frame. Step 5 Go to Image > Canvas Size. You should now have a lot of area to work with. Step 6 Duplicate the layer (Ctrl/Cmd+J) then go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. Merge the layers (Ctrl/Cmd+E) then duplicate the merged layers (Ctrl/Cmd+J). Deep Green Photography Blog -- Nature Photo News and Techniques from the Rainforests of Costa Rica. Musée français de la photographie.