Before & After: JPK Huson

[Mike Serpa]

I got this photo of JPK Huson from this post by JPK Huson 1863. I wondered if I could clean it up as the horizontal lines looked challenging. (They were.) After it was finished I asked permission to post it. Glad the answer was 'yes' or else all my work was for naught!

iPhoto - retouching, cropping, axis adjustment
Seashore - cloning
Fotor - soft haze border

 

[MRB1863]

Mike, you are a genius!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Great job.

 

[Mike Serpa]

Mike, you are a genius!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Great job.

Thanks. Not a genius; got a little lucky with this one. If this didn't work out I would never have posted it!

 

[donna]

Nice job.

 

[Northern Light]

Very nice indeed! JPK must be pleased!

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Very nice indeed! JPK must be pleased!

Ha! Yes, she is! Isn't it amazing? I was just telling him we never could understand how it came to be so damaged in the first place. The rest of the photos are in awfully good shape- this was in one of those ancient, fat, leather albums? It seriously just crumbled around them, sadly had to take the photos out of it because they were getting bits of old leather and cardboard all over them. It must have been elsewhere for quite awhile, though, maybe in a frame which sat in the sun, then a drawer somewhere, or even a wallet.

Yes, thank very much, you can see where it's THE uniform shirt of the 126th New York Infantry! SO clear!!

 

[TinCan]

Wow, very impressive.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Can't see JPK too frequently, Mike Serpa found this thread where our family's abysmal old ' black and white ' of JPK was dusted off! He's so indistinct, have always wondered if it was because his mother had this photo out in a sunny room for many years. More distinct in the 2nd, to be sure! We uncovered an earlier photo of him not long ago so do know what he looked like pre-war.

 

[civilwarincolor]

Ha! Yes, she is! Isn't it amazing? I was just telling him we never could understand how it came to be so damaged in the first place. The rest of the photos are in awfully good shape- this was in one of those ancient, fat, leather albums? It seriously just crumbled around them, sadly had to take the photos out of it because they were getting bits of old leather and cardboard all over them. It must have been elsewhere for quite awhile, though, maybe in a frame which sat in the sun, then a drawer somewhere, or even a wallet.

Yes, thank very much, you can see where it's THE uniform shirt of the 126th New York Infantry! SO clear!!

Looks remarkably like an image I have seen before, now whatever happened to that????

 

[Mike Serpa]

Looks remarkably like an image I have seen before, now whatever happened to that????

Didn't you colorize this one or a similar one?

 

[civilwarincolor]

Didn't you colorize this one or a similar one?

Yes, I did this for JPK Huson 1863 a few years ago on commission. I love your version. I remember that it was not an easy image to do, lots of detail has been lost to fading over time.

 

[Mike Serpa]

Yes, I did this for JPK Huson 1863 a few years ago on commission. I love your version. I remember that it was not an easy image to do, lots of detail has been lost to fading over time.

Thanks. IIRC you used light blue with the photo? I might be wrong on this.

 

[civilwarincolor]

Thanks. IIRC you used light blue with the photo? I might be wrong on this.

I will post it again with @JPK Huson 1863 's permission. I don't like to post a commissioned image without permission since I feel it is no longer "mine".

Basically in my version I desaturated it to black and white and then restored the damage and then colorized it. Oddly enough JPK Huson 1863 and I were just talking about this image in a PM message just this last week.

 

[Mike Serpa]

I will post it again with @JPK Huson 1863 's permission. I don't like to post a commissioned image without permission since I feel it is no longer "mine".

Basically in my version I desaturated it to black and white and then restored the damage and then colorized it. Oddly enough JPK Huson 1863 and I were just talking about this image in a PM message just this last week.

Thanks.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Oh yes, I told him he has free rein with JPK's image- in fact just mentioned it in a PM, so funny! Can't thank anyone enough who has ' given ' JPK back to us. The thing is, hope it doesn't seem maudlin after 150 years, there's a great deal of talk about not becoming too invested in one's ancestors and it is true. The thing is, we have this missing generation on 2 sides, my mother grew up ' close ' to the loss of these 3 brothers. She was raised by the relatives who absorbed the shock, you know? They were her grandmother's uncles, she knew her family of course- elderly, all of them but she knew them.

The family never recovered from losing those boys. Men, yes, JPK was the baby of a very large family. He was the last one killed- he was begged not to join. Did not have to, the family had so many others in uniform plus had lost so many. His brother wasn't just on the same battlefield at Gettysburg- he was in the same action, Barksdale's men had just swept over the 120th NY, throwing JPK's brother Lewis on top of JPK's 126th NY. From bits and pieces we feel Lewis found his brother, not positive. In Plum Run.

JPK was buried on the battlefield. He's unidentified now, Basil Biggs men probably couldn't read something or maybe JPK is somewhere in the old hospital field, unclaimed, who knows. We know the men of the town chartered a train to claim wounded and dead sons- they came home without JPK.

So any way Mom has this image, all forms, clearer and clearer I know her eye brightens considerably. It's not ancestor worship. Someone coming home or a family member more present or an old wound still healing- who can tell. I'm caught up in it for reason, could not tell you why with certainty either.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Here is it! I hope this the correct version, having passed through this computer- if yours is better, Civil War In Color, please use yours? Never got a good look at the shirt before- had had to track down the 126th shirt from just what was there. It was a little specific to the 126th, couldn't really see the tie and strings. Sure got the blue eyes, whew, the family somehow retained that. Always startling, isn't it? Maybe seeing someone from 150 years ago in color, as they probably looked?

 

[civilwarincolor]

Thanks so much for posting my version. I think both versions look great and I hope your family appreciates both equally.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Thanks so much for posting my version. I think both versions look great and I hope your family appreciates both equally.

CWT is the single place no one feels it's insane- this ' thing ' my mother and I have kept chipping away at, and her generation before that- what happened, where are the boys, why it was important. I guess post war it just slowly stopped being important they be found, you know? Must have felt awful for any family left. A little hopeless, communications being tougher, travel a longer process. Their father died in 1869, a well connected man who could have gotten a lot done. I just wrote on another thread, my kids feel it's a little silly, 150 years later, why it is important, finding these men, knowing of them, having their place in the family and the war memorialized.

Oh and please do feel free to post your work any time it comes up! It's very, very cool having several images, the colorized brings life to JPK, Mike Serpa's image made sense of the 'smudge' that must have happened, what, through years of sun exposure? Or was the original probably poor? Why, by the way, did early photographers do so much ' make-up ' on these? Very deceiving, then when cleaned up, his real face came through!

 

[civilwarincolor]

Oh and please do feel free to post your work any time it comes up!

Thanks I appreciate that, if nothing else I thought it was great (and amusing) to give a "like" to one of my colorized images when you posted the version I had worked on.

 

[kel1985]

Great job!