LightningPaul

13 Feb 2009 • 539 views
 
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photoblog image Abandoned - Railway Sign near Wall

Abandoned - Railway Sign near Wall

This another image I shot in Zyrardow, Poland. It's the wall of one of the many abandoned factories. It was very strange and weird to see this railway sign without any sign of tracks. Probably someone, during communistic time,  planned a railway infrastructure but never finished the job.


TECH-INFO: using a tripod, cable release, bubble level and my favorite ultra wide angle lens I took 9 JPGs with each a stop difference. Probably 7 would have been enough. After lens correcting all them in DxO Optics Pro I combined them in a HDR file and tone mapped it, just to enhance all the details and balance the light nicely. Therefore I set the micro contrast to the max and the strength to a high value.
In Photoshop I boosted the contrast and colors using the curves tool and selective color tool for the whites, blacks, reds and cyans. I love to use this tool to push the contrast of individual colors; it's pretty powerful. Finally I added a rectangular vignette but I cut out parts of it to leave the focus on the certain parts of the graffiti, the visible bricks at the bottom left and the hole in the wall at the left top.
Of course all the changes were done using adjustment layers, so I could paint their masks to correct or modify them where needed.


Abandoned - Railway Sign near Wall

This another image I shot in Zyrardow, Poland. It's the wall of one of the many abandoned factories. It was very strange and weird to see this railway sign without any sign of tracks. Probably someone, during communistic time,  planned a railway infrastructure but never finished the job.


TECH-INFO: using a tripod, cable release, bubble level and my favorite ultra wide angle lens I took 9 JPGs with each a stop difference. Probably 7 would have been enough. After lens correcting all them in DxO Optics Pro I combined them in a HDR file and tone mapped it, just to enhance all the details and balance the light nicely. Therefore I set the micro contrast to the max and the strength to a high value.
In Photoshop I boosted the contrast and colors using the curves tool and selective color tool for the whites, blacks, reds and cyans. I love to use this tool to push the contrast of individual colors; it's pretty powerful. Finally I added a rectangular vignette but I cut out parts of it to leave the focus on the certain parts of the graffiti, the visible bricks at the bottom left and the hole in the wall at the left top.
Of course all the changes were done using adjustment layers, so I could paint their masks to correct or modify them where needed.


comments (13)

Wow, that's an amazing shot.. love the tones and the incredible sharpness
LightningPaul: Thank Ruben!
  • 613photo
  • United States
  • 13 Feb 2009, 02:23
Awesome scene. There's so much detail to look at, and the work you did on the color is great.

Good use of HDR. Neither detail nor contrast is missing.
LightningPaul: Thanks a lot! It's a kind of HDR tone mapped image which looks a bit less realistic, though I haven't almost seen on the internet of that type. So I might make more of such images in the future. Especially I also like to watch the colors and details.
  • vintage
  • Australia
  • 13 Feb 2009, 05:43
Wow all your work payed off
LightningPaul: Thanks, it makes me happy smile
Many details and nice colors: beautiful mood.
A great HDR, I like it a lot.
LightningPaul: Many thanks Giorgio. I like such moods a lot.
  • Ilan
  • Israel
  • 13 Feb 2009, 11:38
Very nicely work here. The tones and colors are superb.
There is no doubt - Neglect looks awesome on a photo smile
LightningPaul: Thanks Ian. Though it's looking a bit less realistic, I like it a lot and probably I'll come up with more of such images in the future.
nice HDR
very few of these work
this is sensational!!!
love it
Cheers
Rob
LightningPaul: Many thanks Rob!
Super shot Paul. You are consistently not overcooking HDR and thus producing some great images.
LightningPaul: I appreciate it you mention that I'm not overcooking tone mapped HDR image. Warn me if it would start cooking or burning smile
Perfect bit of urban decay. Very well captured...
LightningPaul: I love to capture urban decay smile
  • Marc
  • France
  • 15 Feb 2009, 16:14
Great atmosphere given by the treatment. Your comment goes for the window on the right too, as if someone had started building one but just did half !
LightningPaul: You're right about the window on the right. Well spotted. Thanks for your visit and comment.
  • Denis
  • 15 Feb 2009, 19:11
I am sorry, I don't like the processing. What about the original picture??
LightningPaul: It's OK if you don't like it. It's a bit more artistic than realistic. Though IMO it's not overcooked, just a bit dramatized.
If you would remove the hard local (color) contrasts, so make it look much more flat, then you'll end up with the original image, which is less interesting.
Dude, this is a cool shot, how long does all the processing take as it sounds pretty complex? I also like how crisp the individual items in the pic look.
LightningPaul: Thanks Ashley for commenting. It takes some time (sometimes up to an hour) but I like to try and experiment a bit. I only do this for my images on my blog smile
I just love all the gritty details on the wall, there is really a lot of detail to look at here!
LightningPaul: Thanks Claus for commenting.
Very impressive !
Very good use of HRD.
You bring me to try HDR on textures now...

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for this photo I'm in a any and all comments icon ShMood©
camera NIKON D200
exposure mode full manual
shutterspeed 1/5s
aperture f/8.0
sensitivity ISO100
focal length 13.0mm
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