Phun with Photoshop

I'm in the middle of a great project.  I have the unbelievable opportunity to not only design but also edit a series of eight books, entitled Robert E. Lee at War: The Mind and Method of a Great American Soldier,  authored by military history expert Scott Bowden.  This series is simply beautiful and if you have any interest at all in the Civil War, I encourage you to look for it.  The first volume is on the press now and should be out in April.  For more information regarding this, check out www.militaryhistorypress.com.  Well worth your time.

Part of my duties in the design and layout of this series is to manipulate the myriad images that are included.  I mean, there's literally hundreds of photos, diagrams, maps and drawings in each of these, and that's a lot of Photoshopping.  It's fun to do, restore all these old photos and whatnot, but by far the coolest thing I've done is to make a plain-jane, flat drawing of a flag into a vintage piece that looks like it's a photograph.

I did a test yesterday and here's what I came up with:

If I had known that it was gonna turn out so well, I would have taken some screenshots and given a little tutorial.  I'll think about that for the next time, as I'm sure there will be a bunch for me to do.

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It occurred to me the other day that even though I'm doing essentially the same thing I did when I worked for someone else, somehow now it seems like a cool job to have.  It also occurred to me that—despite the fact that I've quite literally regularly been working 12-16-18 hour days—I don't wake up depressed and anxious any more and dreading going to work.  I'm usually up and working by 7:00 and it's okay because I've got my coffee and I just have to walk to the other end of the house. I think this self-employment thing suits me, even though money is extremely tight. It's a trade-off, like everything else. 

Most of my jobs are by referral, but I'm working on a marketing program.  If I just had the time to get it done…