Well the second issue of the magazine is off to the printers and should be on shelves next week. I did a lot of “fancy” photoshop work this issue—nothing too complex but more than I normally do. One of the articles is on the history of the Bruin Inn in St Albert and the Big Kahuna wanted to try a fancy archival/modern blend. We tried in vain to photograph it, but couldn’t get the framing right and the depth of field was screwing us. That and the photographer was constantly in danger of getting run over.

So we decided to blend three separate images in photoshop to get the desire effect. One was the original archival photo, one was a shot of the restaurant that was built to mimic the Bruin Inn’s architecture and one was of a hand holding a picture. With a lot of careful masking the picture below was slowly built. The big issue I had right up until the last minute was I couldn’t get the thumb to look like it wasn’t “photoshopped” in, which I didn’t want, even though it was. I fought with it several times in vain, but it wasn’t until Zak said the thumb needed a big, soft shadow that I realized what the problem was. It still looks a little fake, but it is miles above what I had. I guess my kid’s pretty smart after all.

Archival Photo Credit: Provincial Archives of Alberta, A11605