Sacred Trust
Worked under direct commission from the Department of National Defence. Unpacked every medal while wearing white photographic gloves, authenticated it (eliminating costume copies), and inspected it alongside DND historians to confirm correct ribbons, condition, and provenance before photography began.
Master Photography
Jeff Poissant personally photographed over 70% of the pieces (front and back) in-studio under controlled, museum-grade lighting. For geographically distant or ultra-sensitive items, we coordinated with unit photographers across Canada and, when required, the Official Photographer to the Governor General.
Digital Restoration
Every image was perfected in Adobe Photoshop: medals repaired, missing ribbons recreated from scratch, incorrect colour sequences corrected, backgrounds removed on separate layers with precise clipping paths – all saved as fully layered .PSD masters for perfect compatibility with every publishing platform, past, present, and future.
Everlasting Legacy
DND National Defence
Directorate of Honours and Recognition
Official Digital Library of Canadian Orders, Decorations and Medals
The Story Behind the Project
Some opportunities truly come once in a lifetime. In 2002, Jeff Poissant of Evolving Media & Design Inc. was commissioned by the Department of National Defence’s Directorate of Honours and Recognition to create Canada’s first comprehensive, high-resolution digital library of every Order, Decoration, and Medal awarded to Canadian soldiers for valour, peacekeeping, and combat service across three centuries.
We were entrusted with the second (2005) and third (2008) editions, each one building on the last. Holding these pieces in our studio – some the only surviving examples in existence – was a humbling reminder of the courage they represent. It was, and remains, one of the greatest honours I was bestowed upon in our company’s history.
Here is a small sample of the catalogue in PDF format, designed by Jeff Poissant, RGD, who also designed, printed, and prepared the CD-ROM and DVD versions of the physical media in limited numbers. The file is 13 MB and secured, so you cannot copy, edit, or print the catalogue. It is for viewing only.
The finished digital library is freely available to historians, publishers, writers, designers, and media outlets worldwide. Every image is press-ready and colour-perfect right out of the folder – simply drag and drop into InDesign, QuarkXPress, or any layout program, and it’s ready to go. No additional correction needed.
Where necessary, I (Jeff Poissant) went far beyond basic photography: I meticulously repaired damaged medals pixel by pixel, digitally recreated missing ribbons by hand, corrected reversed or incorrect ribbons (yellow-red-blue instead of blue-red-yellow, for example), and then had every image verified by the Directorate of Honours and Recognition, every detail against official records.
For a small number of the rarest pieces, I was not permitted to handle them directly – one was photographed only by the Official Photographer to the Governor General of Canada, while others in Vancouver, Newfoundland, and elsewhere were captured by their trusted unit photographers and sent to me, where I prepared the images by removing the backgrounds, colour correcting, adding a keyline for QuarkXpress, and seamlessly integrating the medals into the master collection.
The following people were instrumental in photographing the military medals in this digital library from 2003 to 2007. As mentioned earlier, I photographed most of the decorations, medals, and awards; edited all the images by removing the backgrounds, adding a keyline for QuarkXPress users, and preparing the digital files in Photoshop and .JPEG formats for the online database.
Photo Credits:
Jeffery Poissant, RGD > Evolving Media & Design Inc.
Fred Cattroll > Cattroll Photo Associates
Cpl. A.Collins > DND CF Photo Unit, NRC Ottawa
Cpl. G. Hambleton > DND CFJIC Production Ottawa
Cpl. JC Beaulne > DND CF Photo Unit, NRC Ottawa
Pte M. Arsenault > DND CF Photo Unit, NRC Ottawa
Cp| H. Vanayan > ADM(HR-Mil) DHH
John Evans > NAC
David Ashe > NAC
MCpl. Issa Paré > GG Ottawa
Here is an example of what I mean when I write that I had to remove the background from each photograph of an Order, Decoration, and Medal. I opened each file in Adobe Photoshop (Version 6, as I recall) and meticulously removed the background by hand, leaving the Order, Decoration, or Medal on its own layer. I also created a keyline working path for each item to ensure a clean, transparent background when placed into older QuarkXPress publications.
One has to appreciate that during this era, isolating intricate metallic surfaces, ribbons, and fine medal details meant manually plotting every curve with the Pen Tool, creating selection masks, or embedding EPS clipping paths. Back then, you couldn't simply highlight an object and have the software isolate it for you. Even if a third-party plugin was available, it usually required extensive touching up afterward.
To put that into perspective, features like "Select Subject" and automated "Remove Background" quick actions weren't introduced natively into Photoshop until 2018–2019—a full decade after the third edition of this digital library was delivered in 2008. We really are spoiled today!
Adobe Photoshop file with layers intact.
"Backward compatibility was essential to ensure the longevity of the files. Adobe Photoshop was selected as the master file format (.PSD) with layers intact, since it remains the industry standard to this day."
— Jeff Poissant, RGD
