This image began with a photo that I came across last summer,  a picture of my dad as a young man. The original photograph was a group shot, obviously of my dad with his friends, but all unknown to me. The picture of my dad was pretty small, and it was badly scratched as well. But because I really loved that photo of my father, I decided to see if I could do something with it and so I got to work on the computer.  I cropped the picture of my dad out of the original black and white photo and cleaned up the scratches. Then I used some digital cut-and-paste to make a new background out of the existing trees and sky, and cover up what remained of the other fellows, mostly their jacket sleeves. Then I used digital pastel, color overlays, and special effects to create the colors and textures in this image. This was a lot of work, but it was worth it to have this portrait of my father as a dashing young man with a boutonniere.

By Randa Dubnick.  All rights reserved.  Originally posted to Randiart.blogspot.com August 28, 2014