Creating the Prints

Original Plant Scan

Finished Print

 

 

 

Most of the Muir plants were in very bad shape. They are glued and taped to herberium sheets and then sprayed with chemicals. Some of the plants were picked by Muir as early as 1864. You can image what kind of shape they were in after 148 years. If you look at the herberium sheet on the left you see what I had to work with. First I scanned all the plants at very high resolution. I wanted the ability to make very large prints with extreme detail. Then I isolated the specimens from their background using Photoshop. Using a variety of software techniques I repaired the plants by rebuilding the area under the tape. Next I removed the glue and enhanced the color and shadows. I used lables, letters and other artifacts to create interesting compositions with the plants. By sampling the colors in the plants I then created different borders for the prints. My goal was to create beautiful compositions that highlighted Muir’s plants. I wanted the prints to look closer to how they might have looked to Muir and not a plant stuck on a herberium sheet for 140 years. These plants have all been artistically enhanced with changes in scale and sometimes color. Some of the plants took as much as 20 hours to restore. I restored almost 200 plants.

When you get a chance to see the prints in person, either through one of the museum shows or by purchasing a print, you will see the detail and 3D quality in the images. This project could not have been accomplished without all of the digital equipment and software that I used to create these prints. It was a great combination of art, history and science. I hope you enjoy the images.

Stephen Joseph

June 2008