Turning Old Photos into Photoshop Smudge Paintings

When I was a child, I dreamed of becoming an archeologist, so I could learn about and help preserve the past. I've given up on my dream of following in Indiana Jones's footsteps, but I haven't lost my fascination with history. One way I have channeled the same passion for archeology, is in the photoshop smudge paintings I make of old photos.

Every family has great stories that most of us will never hear. Take the above image, for example. This woman is, Elizabeth Wallis Carpenter, my great, great, great, grandmother, and helped fight for women's right to vote. Now, I have to get this point right off the bat. I did not paint the colored picture. I WISH I could! That would be so awesome. But, no, I am not that skilled. What I did is called a smudge painting. You take a photo, and on photoshop you use the smudge tool to brush the picture bit by bit until it begins to resemble a painting. I imagine it like if a photo turned into a liquid and I used a brush to delicately smear it.

When I get an old photo from someone, I try to ask them the story behind the photo. Who is it of? What was the year? What do they know about this person? It's most exciting to work on these projects for someone who loves family history. For example, I most enjoy working for my father in law, because he is just as excited about what I am doing as I am. Even more! His eyes light up when he sees the finished product, and for a moment I feel like I have helped bring him closer to his past. It's a good feeling.

I am not skilled enough to do professional photo restoration. Yet. That's why I love these smudge paintings. I do get to do SOME restoration. I can repair tears in a picture, or as in the below photo, fill in a large missing piece of a picture. But one of the things about these photos that helps me out, is that they are not intended to look like perfect copies of the original. They are art, so it is more forgiving when the finished project is not 100 percent precise.

There is some debate about these kind of pictures. But I find it best to look at the positive. This isn't meant to replace the beauty of the original photo. It goes along side the photo. It compliments. And in many of these pictures, it uses a little bit of imagination, as I do not know what the real colors of the photos were. This is just me attempting to create something special to the best of my ability.

When I first began making smudge paintings, I was coloring pictures of Abraham Lincoln, Tatiana Romanov, and other famous people throughout history. But after a while I realized, there are tons of other artists coloring these exact same photos, but nobody is restoring or coloring my great, great, great grandmother. I have a rare opportunity to bring color to pictures that will otherwise be left alone. And the act of coloring in itself, helps rekindle interest in who these people are.

I'm concluding this post with a picture of my beloved Grandma when she was young. She was one of the most influential people in my life, and I love seeing her young face so full of color and vibrance. If you like to dabble in photoshop and have interest in coloring/smudging old family photos, I encourage you to do it. Even if you feel like you barely know your way around the program. Tutorials can help you step by step learn the process, and I will provide you with a link to my favorite tutorial, which I still come back to again and again.