0134 - C7-7
Chrome Sweet Home
Golden Era of Detroit
Book No. 233
Keith A. Smith
Artist’s publication, Rochester, NY, USA
2006
360mm
unpaged
Edition: #4/5
Inscription: Signed by the artist.
Notes: Colophon: "Reproductions of 1940s and 1950s American cars were scanned into my computer. Their environments were removed in Photoshop. Digital pictures were taken in four seasons at nearby Highland Park to be used as backgrounds for each car. Elements of each car were lassoed and made as a separate layer in Photoshop. This permitted me to alter separately the levels, brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, lightness and opacity of individual elements of the car. Chrome was always kept at 100% opacity. Glass was generally set at 33% to permit the background to be seen through it with a blue green tint of the suggested Polaroid glass. Opacity of painted sheet metal was lowered to a range of zero to 30%. Areas of the sheet metal were brought to the foreground. Creating the dozen or so layers and playing with the color and space of the total picture required from twelve to twenty hours per picture. Prints of each car are 17 x 22". Pictures were printed smaller for this book on an Epson Stylus PRO 7800 printer. The book is hand bound by the artist with a Coptic sewing.