Captain Joseph Fry was executed on November 7, 1873 for his role as Captain of the rebel ship Virginius. This image was scanned from the book "The Virginius Affair" by Richard H. Bradford, and had originally been published in the November 29, 1873 issue of Harper’s Weekly.
This is what the original scan looked like after a few minor corrections and enhancements.
The oval was separated from the background, and a copy of that layer was blured uisng Motion Blur to create the isolated background.
A layer with the isolated body was created.
And finally the head was separated into its own layer, and color was removed and contrast adjusted to achieve the desired effect.
The various layers were merged into the final image.
