Messing around with Photoshop

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Just beeen playing around with "Photoshop" on a picture.

 

Which do you prefer; the first as it came out of the camera, or the second. With the second I've also removed the Tamar Road Bridge. I feel building the road bridge so close to Brunel's masterpiece was a visual disaster.

[binesrail]

Its always fun to play with photoshop, and normaly just playing with colors and contrasts makes a big diffrence.

 

What do you think?

 

Chris

[binesrail]

Hi again,

 

Here is just one more example.

 

The first photo is ok but a bit overcast and boring,

And the second photo is after it has been through photoshop, as you can see there are much better colors and contrasts between light and dark places.

 

Whats your thoughts?

 

Chris

[Taigatrommel]

In the photo of Tornado, what steps have you used to get the result in the bottom pic? I'm still getting to grips with Photoshop, and that's the sort of result I'd like- not too overblown, but a clear improvement.

[binesrail]

In the photo of Tornado, what steps have you used to get the result in the bottom pic? I'm still getting to grips with Photoshop, and that's the sort of result I'd like- not too overblown, but a clear improvement.

 

sorry i have not replyed to your question in a while, i kind of forgot about this thread

 

To awnser your question, all i did to the photograph was to play with the contrast and then when i was happy with that just increesed the saturation of the colors to bring a little more life into the photo.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Chris

[binesrail]

p.s.

 

Ive been playing with this photo for about half an hour to try and make the photo look as if it was taken in the 1930's on the L&BR and not in 2010.

 

Let me know what you think.

 

Chris

[Worsdell forever]

Ive been playing with this photo for about half an hour to try and make the photo look as if it was taken in the 1930's on the L&BR and not in 2010.

 

Let me know what you think.

 

Chris

 

I've also had a bit of a play with your original colour version with software that was free, I'm a Yorkshireman and won't pay for photoshop. I used Picasa to change it to B&W, add film grain and 'warm' it up, then using Arcsoft photo studio (came with cannon scanner) to remove the tripod, round thing on the right and the concrete post by the track. I've left the track on the left in place.

 

Hopefully it now looks like an old print, but not as tattered!

 

[binesrail]

I've also had a bit of a play with your original colour version with software that was free, I'm a Yorkshireman and won't pay for photoshop. I used Picasa to change it to B&W, add film grain and 'warm' it up, then using Arcsoft photo studio (came with cannon scanner) to remove the tripod, round thing on the right and the concrete post by the track. I've left the track on the left in place.

 

Hopefully it now looks like an old print, but not as tattered!

 

 

Nice effert but it doesnt look like it was taken in the 1930's simply because you have left the track in that goes up to the car park, this wasnt there in the 30's and is a 2002 aditition.

 

Chris

[lakeview770]

Using Lightroom and 3 different Silver Efex Pro filters

[Me.]

I use Photoshop a lot in my work and for railway photos. For improving normal images I find the Brightness/Contrast less use than the Shadow/Highlight function. With the former, when you brighten up the image you lose a lot of detail in the sky particularly. Using the Shadow/Highlight function to brighten up the shadow only means you can bring detail out of the shady areas without losing the cloud details in the sky.

 

This also works brilliantly for old photos. By darkening the highlights you can often bring out details that don't appear to be in the brighter areas at first glance.

 

To make a new image look old, you really have to reverse-engineer the image. Apart from the very best photographers who could afford expensive cameras and film, most railway snaps were made with limited resources. Films often had a relatively course grain. Unless it was an ideal day from the light point of view, darker areas of the photo would be very dark and light areas would lack detail. Images would often be over or under exposed. Colour film would struggle to pick up certain colours accurately, depending on make and b&w film might not pick up some colours very well either. Also, images might not be as sharp as modern digital cameras.