Make a Hand-Tinted Etching Birthday Card from a Photo

Choose File → New, set Width to 1400 and Height to 1960 in Pixels, keep the White background and click Create.

Now mark where the copper plate will sit. With the rulers showing, click the top ruler at 130, 700 and 1270 to drop vertical guides for the plate's left edge, its centre and its right edge. Then click the left ruler at 120 and 1720 for the top and bottom of the plate. Watch the ruler readout, or zoom in a little, to land close to those numbers; a few pixels either way doesn't matter. The plate is pushed towards the top, which leaves a deep margin underneath for the pencil notes. A real print is matted the same way.

The photo used here is California Quail (9405494428).jpg) from Wikimedia Commons. Crop it to the bird and its perch in any image viewer, about 875 × 1190 px, copy it and press Cmd+V in Lopsy. The photo arrives as a new layer, selected and ready to move. Drag it up so the bird's head sits about a fifth of the way down the plate and the post is roughly centred on the middle guide. Press Cmd+D to drop the selection, then double-click the layer name and rename it Quail Photo.

Pick the Magic Wand. Set Tolerance to 34 and turn Contiguous on. Click the ochre background to the left of the bird. Then hold Shift and click each patch the first click missed: behind the tail, on both sides of the post, above the head, and between the legs. Shift adds each new area to the selection.

A soft background and a sunlit post are close in colour, so the wand always grabs some of the post as well. Fix that with the Lasso. Hold Alt and draw round the whole post to subtract it from the selection. Do the same round each thin leg. Without the legs the bird would float above its perch.

Press Delete to clear the background, then Cmd+D.

The wand leaves specks of background in the feathers' fringe. Draw a loose Lasso a little way outside the bird and post, hold Shift and add loops round the legs. Choose Select → Inverse and press Delete again. Everything outside your loose outline goes, and the bird is left clean. Press Cmd+D.

If small patches of background are still caught between the legs, click each one with the Magic Wand and press Delete.

An etching needs a clear range from light to dark, so prepare the photo first:

1. Filter → Desaturate removes the colour.
2. Filter → Hue/Saturation, Lightness 20, lifts the dark bird.
3. Filter → Brightness/Contrast, Contrast 35, separates the feather markings.
4. Filter → Unsharp Mask, Radius 6, Amount 1.8, sharpens the scalloped breast and the stripes on the flank.

The post is now much paler than the bird and would engrave as almost nothing. Lasso round the post, open Filter → Brightness/Contrast, set Brightness to -30 and Contrast to 30, and tick Preview to check it. Click Apply, then Cmd+D.

Pick the Eraser, set Size to 200 and Opacity to 35, and drag four slow horizontal strokes across the bottom of the post. Each stroke removes a little more, so the post dissolves into the paper instead of ending in a hard cut. Engravings of birds on perches nearly always fade out like this.

Click the empty Layer 1 that came with the new document (it sits under the photo) and rename it Sky Tone. Pick the Gradient tool, set the type to Linear, and in Advanced… make the stops #F7F7F7 and #C8C8C8. Drag from just below the top of the plate down to the foot of the post. This tone becomes the ruled sky: dark grey turns into thick rules, light grey into hairlines.

Click Add Layer and name it Sky Fade. In the Gradient tool's Advanced… editor, make three white stops: 0% opacity at the left end, 0% opacity at about 58%, and 100% opacity at the right end. Set the type to Radial and drag from the middle of the bird straight out to the right-hand plate guide. You get a clear circle with white outside it.

The picture is taller than it is wide, so stretch the circle. Choose Select → All, switch to the Move tool, and drag the top-middle handle up and the bottom-middle handle down until the white just covers the corners of the plate. Press Cmd+D.

Engravers stop the background lines just short of the subject so it stands out. Click Add Layer and name it Halo.

You'll select the bird several times from here on, always the same way: click the Quail Photo row, pick the Magic Wand, turn Contiguous off, set Tolerance to 120, click the empty area around the bird and choose Select → Inverse. The wand only looks at the layer you've clicked, but the selection it makes stays put when you click another layer, so you can then switch to the layer you want to work on.

Select the bird that way, then click back on Halo. Then choose Select → Shrink 4 and Select → Grow 13. The shrink gets rid of stray specks before the grow pushes the edge out. On the Halo layer choose Edit → Fill with white and press Cmd+D.

With the Quail Photo row selected, choose Select → All, then Edit → Copy Merged and Cmd+V. Name the new layer Tone. Repeat the paste and name the copy Tone Cross, then hide it with its eye icon. You'll use it later for the cross-hatching.

Select the bird again from Quail Photo, choose Select → Grow 9 and then Select → Inverse, and click back on Tone. Run Filter → Add Noise at Amount 6 with Mono and Gaussian. That slight grain makes the sky rules break up gently as they fade out towards the edge, the way worn plate lines do.

All the hatching comes from two tiny stripe tiles. Click Add Layer and zoom in on the top-left corner.

1. With the Rectangular Marquee, select a bar 16 px wide and 5 px tall and Edit → Fill it black.
2. Marquee the bar plus 5 px of empty space below it (16 × 10) and choose Edit → Define Pattern. That's a coarse stripe for the sky and the post.
3. Beside it, fill a 16 × 3 bar, marquee it with 3 px of space below (16 × 6) and Define Pattern again. That's a fine stripe for the bird.

Delete the tile layer when you're done.

Click Add Layer above Tone and name it Hatch Sky. Choose Edit → Fill with white, then Edit → Fill with Pattern…. Pick the 16 × 10 tile and click Apply. Run Filter → Gaussian Blur at Radius 3. The blur turns each hard stripe into a soft ridge, and the soft ridge is what lets Threshold make thick and thin lines later.

Add another layer, Hatch Bird, and do the same with the fine 16 × 6 tile and a Gaussian Blur of 2.

Lines that run with the form make an engraving. Zoom out so the whole page fits with room around it. On Hatch Bird, choose Select → All, switch to the Move tool, hold Cmd and drag the rotate handle just outside a corner. Cmd snaps to 15° steps, so stop at 30°. The lines now slope down along the bird's back. Press Cmd+D to apply. The empty corners don't matter, because you'll only keep the stripes inside the bird.

Straight lines make the bird look flat. The stripe layers are opaque, so first hide Hatch Sky and drop Hatch Bird to about 40% so you can see the bird underneath. Marquee the bird's body. On the Move tool's options bar click Mesh Warp, keep the 4 × 4 grid and tick Preview. Drag the four inner points down by about 30–40 px. The stripes bow downward through the middle of the body, so they follow the curve of the breast. Click Apply, set Hatch Bird back to 100% and show Hatch Sky again.

Now give each part of the picture its own set of lines:

The sky rules can stay as they are; the tone underneath decides where they show. The bird and the post need trimming:

1. Click Quail Photo and Magic Wand the empty area around the bird. That selects everything except the bird.
2. Hold Shift and lasso round the post to add it, click Hatch Bird and press Delete. Only the bird keeps its diagonals.
3. Add a Hatch Post layer. Fill it with the coarse stripes, blur it by 3 and rotate it −75° so the lines run almost straight up, like wood grain.
4. Lasso the post, Select → Inverse, and Delete.

Click Hatch Post and choose Layer → Merge Down. Then click Hatch Bird and Merge Down again, so all three sets of stripes are on one layer. Rename it Hatch and set its opacity to 50% with the opacity button on its row. Through the half-transparent stripes, the photo's darks and lights are still visible.

With Hatch selected, choose Layer → Merge Down once more to bake the stripes into Tone. Rename the result Ink Lines and run Filter → Threshold at Level 128. Every pixel becomes black or white. In the dark feathers the soft ridges cross the halfway point early, so the lines swell. In the pale sky they barely cross it, so the rules thin to hairlines. That is the engraving.

To tidy the edge of the page, select an ellipse slightly bigger than the sky oval, choose Select → Inverse and Edit → Fill with white to remove any stray specks outside it.

Show Tone Cross and hide Ink Lines. Brighten it with Filter → Brightness/Contrast, Brightness 60, so only the deepest shadows are still dark.

With Tone Cross selected, click Add Layer so the new layer sits right above it. Make it exactly like Hatch Bird: fill with white, Fill with Pattern using the fine tile, Gaussian Blur 2, then Select → All and rotate it −60° with Cmd held. Select everything outside the bird (Magic Wand the empty area on Quail Photo) and delete it from the new layer. Set it to 50%, Merge Down and run Threshold 128, as before. Only the dark mask, throat and flanks get crossing lines.

Name the result Ink Cross, show Ink Lines again, set Ink Cross to Multiply in the layer effects drawer's blend menu, and Merge Down. Name the merged layer Etching.

A crisp outline holds the shape together. Select the bird without the post: Magic Wand the empty area on Quail Photo, Select → Inverse, then hold Alt and lasso out the post. Choose Select → Selection → Path. Then make a selection of just the post and convert that too. Converting the two parts one at a time gives you two clean paths that you can stroke separately.

Add a layer called Contour. In the Paths panel select each path, click Stroke Path, and set Width to 2 with black. Marquee the faded bottom of the post and delete the outline there so it fades with the post. Then Merge Down the Contour into Etching.

Black ink looks digital. Add a layer above Etching, fill it with #2D1D14 and set it to Lighten: black lines turn brown and white stays white. Merge Down, run Gaussian Blur 1 to soften the pixel edges the way ink spreads into paper, and set Etching to Multiply.

Hide Quail Photo, Halo, Sky Fade and Sky Tone. Fill the Background with the paper colour #F4EAD8. With Etching selected, choose Layer → Group Layers and name the group Plate.

When an etching is printed, a thin film of ink is left on the plate. That makes the plate area a shade darker than the margin, and printers wipe a lighter patch where they want the eye to go.

1. Add a Paper Grain layer just above the Background. Fill it with #808080 and run Add Noise 30 (Mono, Gaussian), Gaussian Blur 1 and Emboss at 135°, Strength 30. Set it to Overlay at 35%.
2. Above the hidden photo, add Plate Tone. Marquee from guide to guide, round the corners with Select → Shrink 14 then Grow 14, and fill with #E6DCC8.
3. Keep that selection active, add Plate Wipe and run Filter → Clouds. Set the layer to Multiply and turn it down to 5%, then press Cmd+D.
4. Add Wipe Highlight. In the gradient's Advanced… editor, make both stops #F3ECDD and drag the right stop's opacity to 0, as you did for the oval fade. Drag a Radial gradient from the bird's middle down to the foot of the post.

You may still see the anchor points of the two outline paths on the post, as in the screenshot. Delete both paths in the Paths panel when you're done.

The press squeezes the paper round the edge of the plate and leaves a shallow dent. Fake that with two thin layers:

• Plate Shadow: the Pencil at Size 6 in #BCAE92. Click near the top-left corner of the plate, then Shift-click at the top right to draw a straight line. Draw the left edge the same way. Run Gaussian Blur 2 and set the layer to 60%.
• Plate Highlight: the Pencil at Size 3 in #FFFBF2, along the bottom and right edges, then Gaussian Blur 1.

Light falls from the top left, so the top and left walls of the dent are in shadow and the bottom and right catch the light.

Inside the Plate group, add a Hand Tint layer set to Multiply. Select the bird from Quail Photo, leave out the post with an Alt-lasso, and choose Select → Grow 3 so the colour spills just past the lines, as a real colourist's wash does. Click back on Hand Tint before you paint. Use the Brush with Hardness 0 and soft, loose strokes:

• slate #8C97A3 at Size 200, Opacity 60 over the head, breast and back
• chestnut #A0603A at Size 90 along the flank stripes
• buff #D9B77E down the belly
• a little brown #7E5A3E on the crown and plume

Lasso the post and wash it with umber #8A6A4A. Run Gaussian Blur 3 to melt the strokes together. Then take the Eraser at Opacity 30 and lift out a few patches of slate so paper shows through. Set the layer to 85%.

Add a Sky Wash layer on Multiply. Select everything outside the bird and paint pale blue #C9D6DC across the top of the oval, then set the layer to 55%. Both washes are easy to strengthen later, once you can judge them next to the lettering.

Add a Grass layer above Etching. Open the brush presets from the Brush options bar, go to the Shape tab and set Size 3, Hardness 100 and Taper 110. Taper makes each stroke thin out to a point, like a stroke of the burin. Draw single blades upward from the foot of the post. Vary their height between about 20 and 80 px and lean them in different directions. Set Size to 2 and Taper to 0 for a few short horizontal strokes of ground. Drag the layer up if needed so the ground meets the post. Then marquee the strip just below the ground on Etching and fill it with white, so no stray sky specks sit under the grass.

For a fuller tuft, choose Layer → Duplicate Layer, click the copy's row, marquee round the grass and click Flip Horizontal in the Move options bar. Name the copy Grass Back. Delete the outermost blades on both layers with a marquee so the clump tapers out, and add a few short blades hugging the post.

The paper halo leaves a pale gap between the feet where the photo had a patch of background. On Etching, lasso a small piece of the post's engraving just below the gap, press Cmd+C and then Cmd+V. The copy pastes in place on its own layer. Drag it up about 25 px to cover the gap, press Cmd+D, and Merge Down.

Click the Grass Back row first, so the lettering lands inside the Plate group, above the grass. Pick the Text tool, choose a dark brown (#2D1D14) and set the font. To avoid clicking inside other text, type each line in the empty lower margin and then move it into place:

1. Many Happy Returns in Pinyon Script, Size 96.
2. The Imperial Quail in IM Fell English SC, Size 34, with Letter spacing 4 in the Text panel. Set Letter spacing back to 0 before the next line.
3. Callipepla californica in IM Fell English, Size 22. Set the options bar's style dropdown to Italic before you click to type. That way the italic face loads with the text.

Rename the layers Greeting, Title and Latin. Centre each line with the Move tool's Align center horizontally button, then drag it into place. Leave a generous gap, about 80 px, between the grass and the script. Set the title comfortably below the script's descenders, tuck the Latin name a little under the title, and keep clear paper between the Latin name and the bottom of the plate.

On a new Rules layer, use the Pencil at Size 2 with Shift-click lines to draw a double rule on each side of the title. Make the inner line shorter than the outer one.

Printmakers number, title and sign each proof in pencil below the plate. Click a layer outside the Plate group (Plate Highlight) so the notes are added outside it, set the colour to graphite #6E6E6E, and use La Belle Aurore at about Size 34. Type 1/1 at the left plate edge, the title in the middle, and a signature lined up with the right edge. Set all three on the same baseline, and rename the layers Edition, Pencil Title and Signature.

Signatures are never perfectly level. Select the signature with the Move tool, drag its rotate handle up about 3°, and press Escape to commit.

Click Signature, Shift-click Edition to select all three notes, and choose Layer → Group Layers. Name the group Margin Notes and set it to 85% so the pencil sits back.

Now the notes move together. Click the group's row, pick the Move tool and drag them down until they sit comfortably under the plate. If you overshoot, Cmd+Z puts them back. Fine-tune with the arrow keys.

Finally, look at the whole card. If the washes feel faint next to the lettering, raise Hand Tint and Sky Wash to 100%.

Save the project with File → Save Project and export the card with File → Quick Export PNG.