AND FIX BAD PICTURES
I love making cards and stickers from old vintage graphics in the public domain. But what I love most about making them is fixing them. I have a theory that most people avoid the public domain images because they are dark and look bad, and maybe they don't know how to make them look better or cut them out. So I will show you how to cut them out and digitally enhance them. We start with a public domain picture. EEEEK! It's dark and looks messed up.
I'm going to turn this picture into some cute stickers I can use with my cards. Go get GIMP if you want to follow along. You can take any picture and cut out just about any object to make stickers with. First we have to fix the color. It's too dark. On the GIMP menu select 'color | levels | adjust color levels' for this window. Then when it looks right just click OK.
It should look like this. With just that much, we've already improved this image 100 percent.
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But let's do a closeup of that face. The printing looks off. YIKES! We're going to have to fix that. It looks like the printer plates didn't match up right and the ink colors were print misaligned. Poor kitty!
So now we need the smudge tool again to try to nudge those colors closer to where they need to be and soften all those black dots that would have been blended into the colors if they were printed right. So using the smudge tool just go over the harsh lines and start moving the colors close to where they look better. Remember with this tool, you can push color into other areas and dilute them. Play around with it enough and you will get good at it.
This is what takes some time to fix bad scans or printing errors on public domain images. But it will be worth it when you're done because you will have a one of a kind graphic with your copyright on it and it will look pretty. After some blending, your picture should look something like this.
It still looks a little freaky but you have moved the colors closer to where they belong and gotten rid of those harsh black dots for a smoother look. Use the zoom tool to get close up and to back away so you can work on the whole image.
Eventually you will reach this point where it looks about the best you can get it. Don't be afraid to use the paintbrush on a 4 or 5 setting to add whiskers, pinkness to the nose, highlights and color to the eyes. Yours should be looking something like this or better, depending on how much smoothing and painting you did.
Looking pretty good now from a distance and that's all we want for this. It's never going to be perfect and you're never going to be satisfied with it completely but you have to know when to stop. Remember if you make a mistake to use 'ctrl + z' to undo any mistakes you might make. Now it looks smoothed and refined. Fix any colors, shadows and lines that you want before saving.
It gets a little tricky on these older prints because they are printed in dots and the dots are not especially connected. So when you select an area to delete, the results will depend on the quality of the print and your settings. You will have to play around with the settings for each print. Sorry but there is no easier way to do it that I know of. Honestly, other programs are much better at selecting and deleting backgrounds than GIMP is, but you can still do it although you may have to work a little harder for it.
You could use the lasso tool to select areas but for me that tool is a lesson in frustration. One wrong click and your patience will expire. Use the eraser tool if needed to completely remove the background. Now you have a cutout on a transparent background like this. Export it as a .png to keep the transparency. If you export it as a .jpg at this point, it will default to a white background. Transparency in a graphics program shows like gray checkerboard until you export it. The background will be clear when you post it or combine it with other graphics.
TIP: If something is not working in GIMP you just may need to 'select | none' from the menu because if anything is selected in your program on any layer, it will not let you proceed until you 'select none' and then reselect the task you want to do.
So now we should have the kitten and shoe on a transparent background like this. The .png will display whatever color background you put it on. The shape has been cutout and saved as a .png because that is the format for transparent backgrounds. You could make a whole 6" x 9" sheet of these resized smaller to upload as a Cricut 'print then cut' file and let Cricut do the work for you OR you could put a bunch of these on an 8½" x 11" sheets in various sizes and print and 'fussy cut' them out by hand.
There you have it. And that is why graphic artists charge for their work. It takes a little time and skill to make these pretty things but you can do it yourself if you have the desire. And once you learn it, the skills carry over to most all other graphic programs. The tools are basically the same in all graphics programs with a few exceptions.
Could it be better? Definitely, and maybe yours will be. Every time I look at it, I see something else I wish I had fixed because as an artist with a critical eye I'm hardly ever satisfied with the results. I always think I can do better. BUT like I said, you have to know when to stop.
Enjoy your new found skills and enjoy the free kitty cutouts!
