The Story of a Scan

I thought you might be interested in how I create some of my scans.

First I take a picture from a magazine and scan it into my computer. Often it looks like this with lots of print, sometimes on the model's body (hey, I can put up with a lot of things but I hate it when they defile the flesh). This is Denis Sergovskiy from Reps! magazine photographed by Irvin Gelb.

Then I find a way to fill in the background using bits and pieces from the image itself or from other scans. Sometimes I can erase some or all of the script overlaying the flesh but usually I end up cropping the image.

Once I've taken care of the parts I don't like and filled in the background the fun part begins. I experiment with highlighting parts of the image, altering color and hue, brightness and contrast, light and shadow until I'm satisfied with the result.