Train Station at 11mm

I've had this idea in my head and finally got a chance to give it a try leaving MK at 1:45AM. ; Still not there yet as the angle and light makes it hard to see the logo.

[expando]http://www.sthomasphotos.com/photos/809082779_Zk7qJ-XL.jpg[/expando]
Nikon D70/Tokina 11-16, 10s, f/11, ISO 200, EV +0.7, 11mm FL

 

That's a cool idea. ; I actually like the way the light hits the logo at a low angle at both M's and the K. ; Maybe some light painting or flash at a low angle could help brighten some of the darker spots on the logo?

 

There's an idea, Michael. ; Will have to look for someplace near me I can practice doing that.

 

I tried to do this during the day but there were too many people in the shot (although not on the logo) for my liking. ; Whenever we're in this area at night, security is ready for us to leave, so I don't have the time to stop and set up. ; I like what you've done here! ; I think if you could edit layers and mask, you could make it near-perfect.

 

This is very nice- I think some more processing could really make the bottom half of the image pop.

 

I threw a curve at it after pulling in the black point using Picnik.com (only editor available to me at the moment). ; I know Roger, I need to upgrade to Aperture 3. ; Soon, I promise.

First version from OP.


Curved version.


Expando Curved version.
[expando]http://www.sthomasphotos.com/photos/811719463_tMj9P-XL-1.jpg[/expando]

 

You should, Roger, now that I am caught up with my processing and upgraded to a MacBook Pro, there's no reason not too. ; I was j/k with ya anyway. ; You can bet once I get A3, I will be looking back at some older photos to see if I can improve them with the new tools.

 

There's really no way around using layer masks for a shot like this. ; The lights of the train station and turnstiles (ans the sky) are perfect in the original, whereas the ground is perfect in the update.

 

What I need is an upside down split ND grad effect. ; I have seen people selling pre-sets for such an effect for A3 and I know LR2 has it as I saw it demonstrated last fall.

I don't own PS so I have no access to an editor with layer masks. ;

 

Not at all, Craig. ; What's tough is getting the all the letters to come out as there is spot lighting at the ends and middle. ; It's closer than what I could get. ; I've been playing with dodging the bottom part in Picnik but it's not good enough. ; Aperture 2 has that and I will work on it tonight some.

If anyone wants a crack at this, here's a link to the original image: MK Entrance

You will notice I cropped it from the original to 16x9 ratio (HD)

 

Is Photoshop the only editor with layers/masks (this is an honest question--it and ACR are the only things I use)? ; I was really under the impression that most photo editing programs had the ability to work with layers (or something comparable). ; I don't think I could get by without them.

If you don't mind Craig's editing, I wouldn't mind taking a crack at it...

 

Be my guest, Tom. ; The original is linked in the post above yours. ;

Lightroom and Aperture do not have layer editing. Sounds like Craig's acdsee doesn't either. ; Nikon's Capture NX uses U-point technology instead of layers.

Aperture 3 has new brushes which look similar to U-Point. Maybe Roger or Paul can chime in here when they gets a chance about how they work.

 

My take:


[expando]http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee68/tbricker/736205698_3mmoG-Ocopy-1.jpg[/expando]

 

Thanks, Tom. ; Did you do something to the castle logo? ; Looks like it's been highlighted more than just turning up the exposure. ;

My challenge is to see if I can replicate this look in the tools I own. ; Really appreciate you and Craig for helping out!

 

I really wish I could get the image to display at 50% size here; it looks much better on my screen. ; Here, a lot of the lines look jagged for some reason (if you want a copy of the file, I can email it to you).

I really wish Photoshop had a way to export steps into text. ; That would make this so easy. ; Here is roughly what I did.

1. ; Converted image to Smart Object and drastically increased shadows (+30 or so) while slightly increased highlights and midtone contrast (masked out sky so it retained original color).
2. ; Used adjustment layer to dramatically increase contrast and brightness (+50 and +25, respectively) in lower 50% of image (masked out top half).
3. ; Used adjustment layer to dramatically increase contrast and slightly increase brightness (+35 and +10, respectively) in lower 50% of image (masked out top half).
4. ; Used adjustment layer to dramatically increase contrast and brightness (+50 and +25, respectively) in Magic Kingdom logo (masked out rest).
5. Used adjustment layer to increase gamma throughout.
6. Used burn tool to decrease exposure on one part of MK logo, MK Train Station sign, and clock.
7. Used adjustment layer to increase saturation slightly.
8. Sharpened using LAB sharp/feather/USM Action preset.
9. Found center point and cropped at (rough) center.

In retrospect (after looking at the other images), it would have likely looked better with less contrast in the center lower portion of the image. ; Oh well.