Gift for a Lost Pet

I made this canvas for my sister whose Golden recently passed away. The canvas was picked up at Hobby Lobby for a few dollars a yard. I made some adjustments to the photo in photoshop (removed background, added black and white layer mask, applied a posterize filter, increased contrast) and lightroom (made black/white and highlights/shadows adjustments).

I am amazed at the level of detail burned into the canvas. You can almost make out individual hairs. It took some (read: a lot of) experimenting with the settings both in the GFUI and in photoshop/lightroom to get the contrast right but the effort was worth it though. It turned out amazing.

I placed it in a frame that I also picked up at Hobby Lobby. Here is the final product. If you look closely, beyond the mess, you can see Led Zappelin on the desk in the background.

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Nicely done. It’s hard to lose them.

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What a beautiful gift. It is never easy to lose a furbaby. :frowning:

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Great job on the contrast with the photo…that level of detail is hard to pull off. That makes a lovely memorial.

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That is amazing detail, especially that it is on canvas.

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That’s a lovely memorial for your sister. I’m wondering if you sprayed any kind of finish over it to preserve the engrave? I’d be a bit afraid of it fading with time.

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I didn’t even think of that. Crossing my fingers it doesn’t fade…

Any suggestions for a finish for future canvas projects?

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It depends on the cause of the fading. If it is UV light, pretty much any glass or plastic will block UV light below 350nm, however, it appears you want to block UV from 285nm-400nm. They do make archival plexiglass that blocks the full range.

If canvas naturally fades even inside a safe, I have no idea what will stabilize it.

Beautiful job.

Bonus points for mentioning how much work you have to put into both software manipulation of images and settings before you get such an amazing result.

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A lovely memorial photo … she will cherish it, I’m sure.

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That came out really nice!

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