In 1883 Augusta Joyce Crocheron created the picture entitled “Representative Women of Deseret” as a tribute to leaders of various women’s organizations in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The engraving contains photographs of twenty women, as well as illustrations of LDS cultural and religious motifs. A book by the same name contains biographies of each of the women pictured.

Cropped and Resized Image

The Library of Congress owns a copy of the poster. The digitized version, while large, is still quite blurry. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns another copy. I received a rather large image (3871 px by 5756 px), which I cropped and resized to fit here.

Matted Engraving

As I added a clean matt for the total engraving, I discovered the gray areas at the top and bottom of the image were actually clouds and rays of light framing the women. I kept those in and just cleaned up the background. Because there was so much detail in the engraving, I used the magic wand tool, then inverse selection, to maintain the foreground from the background.I changed the background color to a more brown tint, which I think feels warmer. The process was quite difficult because of the ripples in some of the photographs which were glued on, the dirt, the degree of shadows, etc.

Restored Photograph

The photograph of Zina Y. Williams had a rip, some discoloration, and some dust specks. The photograph was not laying flat on the poster on the upper right side. I cleaned these things up. I cleaned up the border and used the Glaussian Blur to fix details. I fixed some blemishes on her face. I also changed the tone of the picture.

Hand-colored Photograph

The cameo of Phoebe Woodruff contains theological books, which I hand colored, as well as the grass and lilies. I included the sheaf of grain, an important Mormon symbol.I colored Phoebe a little bit, but I felt like it was too bright and unnatural, so I marquised her oval cameo, went into adjustments, hues, and played with light to subdue the color a bit.

Vignetted Photograph

I decided to highlight Eliza R. Snow as the “Presidentess of all women.” I used the oval marquis and feather to create the vignette. I also played with sepia tones.