Decaying Cars: Definition, Color and Curves

If this is your first visit here, please read the preamble. I'm always looking for constructive feedback on post-processing techniques so I can craft better photographs.

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I made a visit to the town of Julian, CA this past weekend. Julian began as a gold mining town in 1870 or so. The mine is long since shut down, although tours still operate - and are quite informative and engaging. Strewn about the area surrounding the Eagle and High Peak Mine are the shells of various vehicles - wagons, trucks, tractors...and a few I can't quite identify. Among my favorites are these two beauties:

Decaying Cars, Eagle Mine, Julian CA

I like the composition here. Simple. Strong. The feeling I had at the time is that Mother Earth is reclaiming its resources, slowing engulfing the remains of these machines. And I loved the rust on the truck in the rear. What was in camera didn't convey my feelings during the shot, so adjustments were in order.

Beyond basic exposure and sharpening, a global curves adjustment is applied, bumping the red midtones and lowering the green midtones to really accentuate the rust. Then, a second curves adjustment just to the background to replenish the greens lost to the prior curve. I still wanted more of the rust coming through, so another global color bump to the red tones only. To add texture to the rust,  definition is brushed to just the cars.

Curves mask, replenishing greens of the background

Definition mask, adding texture to car rust

Final touches are some burning to the hood of the foreground car, and a subtle vignette to pull the eyes to the center.

This time around, here's the initial and final photographs. Common across both images is the crop, exposure, sharpening, and vignette.

Initial

Final

Strolling Home: Refining Focus

If this is your first visit here, please read the preamble. I'm always looking for constructive feedback on post-processing techniques so I can craft better photographs.

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Last week the family took a walk around the neighborhood. I took the camera - trying to make this habit and not afterthought. On the walk home, my wife and son were ahead of me and I took this photograph:

Strolling Home

At the moment of the shot, my feelings were of relaxed simplicity - taking a walk with someone important in your life. An easy-going gait. Nothing complicated. I liked the leading lines of the grass and sidewalk, and the repetition of the trees, drawing the eye toward my subjects walking casually into the distance. But I'd shot in aperture priority at F8, so there was too much depth of field which I found distracting.

Enter Serendipity.

About half a day before getting to the processing of this shot, I happened to watch a few tutorial videos on OnOne's FocalPoint tool. Very powerful, loads of effects mimicking a variety of cameras, but the core essence is blurring portions of the photograph. I'm not ready to buy OnOne (ok...that's code for I can't afford it now), but what I can do is use the same basic technique with the tools I do have. Aperture has a Blur adjustment - as does just about all other tools these days.

I wanted all the surrounding detail (aka distractions) softened - in particular the trees in the foreground -so the eye is more naturally drawn to my walking subjects. I applied a blur to the entire image, then selectively erased the adjustment from my subjects using a brush with a lot of softness at the edges. Also, doing so with several overlays to feather the blurring effect. The mask of the blur effect looks like this:

Blur effect, drawing focus to the subjects

Voila. Looking at this as I post it, I could stand to do a bit more feathering of the blur removal on the left edge. But generally, I'm happy with this.

And for the record, I did a little cloning in the grass area to hide a less than attractive drainage pipe. That was a major distraction for which blurring wouldn't have been sufficient.

Preamble: Why This Blog

For 2012, I made a slew of New Year's Resolutions. Perhaps like you. I'm a realist, and in the back of my mind I know that not all will be seen through. Such is life. But one resolution I made is to "feed a hobby"...and I fully intend to make good on that. My hobby is photography and I plan to spend more time improving my skills. Let me rephrase....I will spend more time improving my skills. Jees....2012 isn't even 9 hours old for me and I'm already slipping... :)

Over the last year, my interest in photography was rekindled. And I've done more reading and studying on the topic then I'd ever done in the past. And if you're not on Google+ already, get there. And circle me. There's a very vibrant and active photography community. Being inspired by others' work has been great, and I've learned quite a bit out composition, some about lighting. But I'm still walking uphill when it comes to post processing. Not so much what tools are available - there are plenty of folks that share their workflows. Nor how to add an effect or correction - the web is a great place for how-to guides.

What I find is missing is why an effect is added. Why is more or less light needed in a particular image? Why add definition? Why burn? Why dodge? My instinct is that there will be iterations between post processing and the field work. It'll be a cyclical process. For me, I think this'll be getting more in tune with the atmosphere and feeling of a photo whilst I'm taking it. And remembering those feelings and bringing them back into the digital darkroom.

I intend to update this blog every couple of weeks. As you'll see, I'm an Aperture user, so many tool references will use Aperture parlance. But I think the concepts will translate across tool sets. And I'd really like feedback, positive or negative, on the forthcoming entries. The whole point this is to pass on knowledge and get better at photography in the process. And I really hope you don't leave one of my posts looking downward, shaking your head, mumbling "Why did I get subjected to such a eyesore of a photo?" :)