Photoshop Adjusted Maliseet Paddle

I while back I posted some info on a circa 1878 Maliseet Paddle. I really liked the curved etched motifs, but the age of the paddle and the resolution of the original image affected the clarity of the pattern. Using some newly learned Photoshop techniques, I tried to improve the image's decoration.


Original Image
First, I used the magnetic lasso tool to select the paddle blade and applied a black mask to the original background. Then by changing the hue and sharpening the image, I tried to make it look like a cherry wood paddle. By fiddling around with the controls of the unsharpen mask effect, I ended up increasing the contrast of the pattern, but that made it more grainy. Still, now the beautiful pattern is more obvious for when I attempt to replicate this decoration on a future blade.


Original Masked Image; Hue Adjustment; Unsharpen Mask Adjustment