Photographing photographs

By Bob Stephen

Here are the main photographic stages of a method of processing photos or images in frames without introducing glare from the glass:

1. A3 picture photographed face on. This is merely to give the corrrect height and width of the photo. It is not strictly necessary.

2. Picture photographed from "underneath" at an angle of about 45°. Enough of an angle is chosen to just get rid of all glare from the flash. This produces a distorted photo. It's approximately trapezoidal in shape. Note that the trapezoid doesn't need to be exactly symmetrical but getting closeish won't do any harm.

3. Resulting picture distortions are first corrected in GIMP using the perspective tool (Tools/Perspective). Merely drag the top left and top right edges so they fill the frame and the in between bits of the photo will then be automatically lined up. Supplementary white balance adjustments can then be made and some micro tinkering can be done with blemishes and extraneous elements in the photo (clone circle and clone location suitably chosen for each blemish). The end result is excellent and as good as taking the photo out of the frame and putting it on a flatbed scanner.

4. A 'family tree' was found on the back of the photo frame which is displayed as a separate image. I don't think anything special was done with this photo other than a bit of cropping in GIMP and making sure that the background of the photo outside the text was OK. You will notice that I also photographed the back of the photo at an angle (which was probably unnecessary) and that I haven't bothered to do any trapezoidal corrections.