I found this image of the Wright brothers flying an early glider. Since they learned a lot by trial and error, I saw the parallels to my experiences with CSS, HTML, and images. I thought it would make a great header for my portfolio. Before we learned about photoshop, I was content just lightening up the image a bit and dropping an H-1 title over the top.

After picking up some Photoshop basics, I cleaned up the picture, repaired the strut on the right wing, and made some repairs all around. I then went to work coloring the picture, trying to get a sense of the sand at Kittyhawk, the sky, and some highlights like the red suspenders and green hat.

I then wanted to fade the bottom part of the picture into my maincontent area, and cut the picture in half. I put the top half into the header, and planned to fade the bottom half and put it into maincontent.

I ran into two problems: first, I'd have to cut the lower half into two parts: one for the maincontent, and one for the nav column.

This wasn't the biggest problem. A bigger issue was matching up the faded section with the header. I faded the lower picuture over and over, but couldn't get the two halves to look seamless. The lower half was always a little lighter at the seam. I gave up after many tries and saw how PP did it on Archiva. Eureka! Don't cut up the picture, put it into the wrapper! I tried it out and it worked just as I had hoped. I added a title, and am now much happier with the look of the portfolio page.

Although I'd restored the Wright Brothers' glider, I wanted a bigger challenge. I've been thinking about an article on changing military ethics in wartime, and looked for pictures of US military leaders who had redefined ethical standards for the conduct of warfare. Sherman, Sheridan, Grant, Mosby, and Lemay came to mind. Mosby posed the biggest challenge due to a very beaten picture located in the National Archives.

The water spots, dirt and discolorations made the original look pretty rough. I applied auto corrections, band-aids, and clone patches all over. I hit my "historian's integrity limit" around the Grey Ghost's chin and neck, because I was concerned I'd be shaving off his facial hair and making things up

For the mounted engravings section, I found a collection of envelopes used during the American Civil War. The envelopes contained a variety of patriotic and motivational themes, and I though a few images might be helpful to illustrate themes on combat motivation, the home front, and expectations vs reality of battle. This first image is a sample of the original image as printed on an envelope.

This mounted image captures a timeless scene of soldiers going off to war that resonates all the way back to the Illiad.

"Off to War" is a similar theme, but this image was colored. transparency control was challenging trying to keep the color and minimizing the old background. I did a lot of fill in with the cloning tool where the colors didn't make it.

The third engraving is an encouragement to young volunteers, combining the patriotic icon of the flag with a sharp looking uniform, impressive sword, and "BULLY FOR YOU."

I liked this picture contrasting the order and confidence of the Union soldiers compared to the disorder and panic in the Confederates

Up to this point, I'd mounted the pictures on a white background because this is where I'm leaning with my final project. With this final engraving, I matched backgrounds and really liked the way it blends in.