I Couldn't Possibly Look

As our image is set in an re-enactment display we could sepia tone it to give a sense of time and nostalgia.

Duplicate our image by dragging it over the Create New Layer tab.

Now call up the Hue Saturation pallet Image > Adjust > Hue/Saturation or shortcut Ctrl U. Tick the Colorize box and move the sliders to a Hue of 25 and Saturation of around 25. Now our image has a nice subtle sepia tone to it. Try experimenting with these settings to see which coloring best suits your image.

Why not try adding some texture at this stage Filter > Texture > Texturize Sandstone can be selected from the dropdown menu and applied. If the amount looks too overpowering this can be reduced using Filter > Fade and then reduce the amount until we are satisfied with the result.

Since our subjects are dressed in colorful costumes we could bring back this colour in to our sepia image. For this we use the Mask, Layer > Add Layer Mask > Reveal all. Note. Our foreground and background colours on our Tool box change to Black and White. Black removes the top layer whilst white will restore the layer if we make a mistake. Selecting a soft edge paint brush we can begin to remove the top layer.

Toned Image

We can further improve our image and focus our attention on our subjects by adding a vignette. Create a New Empty layer by clicking on the New Layer Tab

and from our tool box select the Rectangular Marquee and drag this over the inside of our image leaving a border.

To inverse our selection Select > Inverse or Shift Ctrl +I short cut. Now from the menu bar we Select > Feather Selection and set the radius to around 40.

This may vary depending on the file size so try experimenting. We now have two lines of marching ants around our image. Set our foreground colour to White and from our Tool box select the Paint Bucket click inside the line of marching ants fills the area with white and our vignette and our image is complete. Our image can now be flatten and saved.

Click to enlarge

Our the final image is a vast improvement on our original shot. We now have the image that we had in mind when we fired the shutter.