extras + tutorial - mock postal history

tutorial - creating mock postal history- the cancel

	In this tutorial, I will show you how to make the commemorative cancel at left the BoltCutter way. There are 3 essential tools. #1) A computer #2) A scanner, #3) An image creation program capable of layers. (Photoshop/Paint Shop Pro for example.) I will be using Photoshop, but the steps are essentially the same for whichever program you use. To enlarge the finished product, click on the thumbnail at left.
On the right are the building blocks for our commemorative cancel. We will be using the face on the postcard that we used in the previous project, so it has been imported into a new canvas. The wreath is the same as well. SAVE OFTEN.
	Duplicate the face layer, and Desaturate. Go to Image/Adjustments, Brightness/Contrast and adjust the sliders until most of the grey areas are washed out.
Go to Filter/Sketch, Photocopy. The default settings worked fine for this picture but you may have to make adjustments for you picture.
	We have gone to Filter/Stylize, Find Edges, then gone back in and erased what's left of the grey areas leaving us with a line drawing of our subject. The erasure tool is used to clean up the image, we want a black & white line drawing of the subject.
A 3 px. hard brush is used to draw in a few details that were lost. We then drew a 3px circle around the image.
	The wreath is added and re-sized to taste.
The country name, reason for the cancel & years were done in 'Kremlin Minister' available elsewhere on this site.
	The dates were a little boring, so we drew a ribbon similar to this one on a separate canvas & imported it in, resized & rotated to get the effect we were looking for. We distorted the text to fit. Warp Text/Flag.
The day of issue was added.
	The ribbon layer was duplicated. The original layer was overlaid with black and moved 3 px. down, 2 to the right, to create a shadow. Merge all layers except the white background.
Now we will distress our cancel & simulate the bleeding that sometimes occurs. Go to Filter/Brushstrokes, Spatter. The default settings are fine. WHAT A MESS!
	Go to Edit/Fade Spatter, adjust the sliders to taste, reducing the damage. We want the edges to be slightly fuzzy with thin spots in the inked areas.
Here is the finished cancel. Commemorative cancels are sometimes done in colors other than black, to emphasize the importance of the occasion. We will do ours in red. Go to Image/Adjustments, click the Colorize radio button and adjust the sliders to taste.
	Here the cancel and stamp from the previous project have been laid over a suitably distressed fragment. The cancel is on the top layer. Opacity is reduced by 5%, with the Blending Mode set to Linear Burn. All that is left is to draw the fold in the stamp. Any clean uncluttered image can be used to create a commemorative cancel. Commemorative cancels come in a variety of shapes so don't be afraid to experiment. Your special cancel can celebrate any person, place, or thing, and will make your project EXTRA special. Enjoy it! Regards, the Bolt Cutter team.