Matsumoto Castle

My favorite castle in Japan
(originally posted 3/22/2004)

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Matsumoto Castle is one of the most beautiful in Japan. Although Himeji is said to be the most beautiful (it's called the "White Heron Castle"), I prefer Matsumoto (called "Crow Castle" for its black color).

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Technical note: This is a good example of what Photoshop can do. The original was a "postcard" slide, with bright blue sky and a brilliant red bridge railing.

The scan (using a low-cost, fast scanner) had already muted the color a bit, and brought down the resolution. Since the main attraction of the original shot was its snappiness, and this had been lost, I decided to toy with the image.

First I removed some distractions: people on the left end of the bridge, and a tower in the lower right background.

Then I ran the image through some filters, especially "blur" and "noise." Next I took it down to grayscale, back to RGB, and finally adjusted the color to brown. The result strongly resembles the sepia-toned prints of the past.

If I printed this on textured paper (I've had great luck with actual watercolor paper) it would look a lot like a real print. 

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