Regency Era Scrapbooking Backgrounds - Ackermann's Repository

I was playing around with more images from Ackermann's Repository and fell in love with a series of hand-colored plates of landscape scenes from the 1820's.  I thought these images would make great background papers for digital scrapbooking so I played around with a few settings in Photoshop and then added in a funky texture I created, to give them a whole new look.

Ackermann's Repository always included a variety of Landscape, Architecture, or scenic image in every issue.  They usually were part of a themed series like The Churches of London or Country Seats.
The images I used were from the 1820's and were part of the garden and country seat series.

EKD digital scrapbooking backgrounds made with Ackermann's Repository images

I chose to create a series of 8 backgrounds that would worked together well. These garden and pastoral landscapes had similar colors and tones so I made a few lighting adjustments, added an EKDuncan texture from my batch of favorites and came up with this set of pages.

I liked them so much that I even loaded them over on me EveyD account over at deviantart.com

Here are the individual background pages I created

1819 Aviary in Garden scene from Ackermann's Repository

1819 Garden scene from Ackermann's Repository

1820 Garden Fountain from Ackermann's Repository

1820 Garden Seat scene from Ackermann's Repository

1820 Rustic Garden Bridge over water from Ackermann's Repository

1821 Formal Garden Bridge over water from Ackermann's Repository

1821 Picturesque Dairy scene from Ackermann's Repository

1822 Castle on the River scene from Ackermann's Repository

1823 Ditton - Country seat of Lord Montague from Ackermann's Repository

1823 The Hermitage on the Frogmore Estate from Ackermann's Repository

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Here is what the original image for the above Hermitage looked like

This is the original image from Ackermann's Repository

I started with the original image above; cropped it and altered it to give it a softer watercolor effect. This made a nice background but not quite what I was looking for...

This is what the background looked like before the crackle effect was added

so I then added a crackle texture for some added interest.

The final EKDuncan altered background page of the Ackermann's 1823 Hermitage scene

I followed the same basic steps for all the images so they would work together as a series
of antique looking background papers and am quite pleased with the final effect.

I enjoy using these nearly 200 year old images in my modern digital art.
There is just so much fun that can be had with them and I don't think I'll ever tire of using them.

 I hope this has inspired you to play and give new life to old images too.

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 I'll be posting a large selection of scenic elements like those used to create these
backgrounds so keep checking back to see what all the goodies I have to share.

till next time...