So, I finally got myself into the 21st Century when it comes to the post-processing of digital images. One of the really great things about shooting RAW is that one can go back years after the fact and take another crack at post processing using newer and better tools with no penalty other than time investment.
Lightroom 3 is certainly one of those tools, and I’ve been completely enamored with the picture processing options ever since I installed it yesterday. I’ve decided to go back and re-process some of my favorite shots from the past. The long-term goal of this will involve learning to be a better printer as well and hopefully offering some “fine art” type shots for sale sometime down the road.
The first shot I’d like to share with you is Clinton Sunset taken in Clinton, Iowa on the 29th of December, 2006. I was home in Illinois for the holidays and a friend (the late George Kantola) and I decided to pack up and head west for some rail shooting. The day didn’t yield too many great shots, but when sunset rolled around, Mother Nature decided to put on a SHOW!
Since the end goal of all this work will be fine art prints, I would love to here any kind of critiques you might have. Hopefully I’ll be able to bring you all a new image every week or so. I was actually kind of amazed at some of the photos I’d forgotten about in my archives (this can happen, I suppose, when one has a catalogue of over 50,000 digital images).
Thanks in advance for any thoughts!
Chris
ETA: Be sure to “Enlarge” this one. I think it looks particularly nice viewed larger.
To me, the shot looks like a generic train photo with red tint of filter added. Now I’m not saying that this is what you did; I’m only saying that is how it looks to me. The reason I see it this way is the lack of different colors in the signals, plus the clouds are all the same tint. Also, I have a few shots that suffer from the same effect: even though I shot them in natural light, the extreme redness tends to overpower the rest of the image.
My other critiques are that the ground is too dark and lacking in detail, and the out-of-focus tank cars on the far right are distracting to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the shot. It’s nice, but uninspiring.[2c]
…Chris…You know I respect all of your ability with photography. And I feel a bit unqualified to critique.
My take is this from your golden shot…Dramatic…! For sure. And it does catch one with it’s color. I too agree, the out of focus of the tanks seems to be detracting…If they were sharp, I believe the photo would be even more eyecatching.
This is what I’m talking about! Thanks, guys! As much as I love getting positive feedback, critiques like this are excellent for me. I can only define what I like. If I ever intend to sell stuff, it’s going to be very important for me to get input from others as well.
So, here’s what I’m up against with this shot. In order to stop motion I was shooting at ISO 800 and I think my aperture would have been f8 or f11. Because the subject covers such a huge depth (from the nearest tank cars all the way to infinity), I simply couldn’t have gotten more depth of field to bring the nearest cars into focus. I would have run into slow shutter speeds and diffraction problems. To compensate for that I’ve adjusted the crop slightly to the left. I tried doing more, but it seemed like it was messing up the composition when I did. Sorry, this was the best I could do with that particular problem.
The foreground detail was also a little problematic. As much as I loved the K100D, the fact is that it was an early generation of DSLR and I don’t get the kind of shadow detail out of it that I do from the K-5, especially at ISO 800. I’ve pulled on the shadows as hard as I could before digital noise got to be too much. It’s not a big difference, but there’s at least a little definition there now, an I agree that I like it more.
The signals are also problematic for me. I agree with what you guys are saying, but I have no idea how to fix it. The camera simply didn’t give me oodles of color data in the signals. The biggest example of that is the signal on the left. Any clue what that should be? I can fake it if I knew what color it was supposed to be, but the event was 5 years ago, and I simply can’t remember what it is now. I’ve tried to add a little more pop to the other signals.
Also, my girlfriend saw the before and after and was sad to see that the purple horizon had been obliterated when I punched up the colors. Because of that, I edited the sky to keep some purple near the horizon.
Looks to me like the signal on the left should have green on the high one, red on the low. They look like they’re three-light signals. The center mast on the distant structure looks to be yellow-red, and the lone one visible on the right is red.
I too, like the picture but also must admit to a bias. I’ve played in Brian’s back yard. Carl’s too if he counts everything east of the river. (We can change out at Route 84 on the Illinois side.)
The signal on the left is showing lunar over red, Restricting. The top head is a two aspect, lunar or red. The bottom head is a three aspect; green, yellow or red. The signals on the overhead govern mains 1 (also a two headed signal, just can’t see the bottom one) and 2, the lone one on the left the yard lead. All the signals are part of the Camanche control point (CPY004). The lead parallels the mains past both the signal bridge and overhead highway bridge to some industries and a switch to main 2. Movements lined for the lead get a lunar, movements lined to main 2 or lead-main 2-main 1 through the crossover(s) get a diverging (red over --) indication depending on circumstances.
At first when I saw the picture, I thought it was a westbound leaving Clinton about to take the yellow over red on main #2. After enlarging it, I noticed the headlight turned on next to the tank cars. Looking more I realized it’s probably the Clinton Yard job working the west end of the yard. It’s on the lead and that restricting signal is there for the switch job to take head room. When someone is going to make multiple moves, the dispatcher will often leave the signal lined up until no longer needed. Because of that the engine could be pulling out towards Camanche or shoving back towards the yard.
Thanks, Jeff! I thought that signal head on top had only two lights. Makes sense now.
I’m going to have to check out the timetables, Jeff. If Camanche is CP Y004, it carries a number based on the mileposts, which start over again at Clinton. But the numbering systems overlap…the new control point at Lombard is CP Y019, based on the milepost from Chicago. (On the other hand, the station codes are continuous from Chicago.)
(I should make a visit to my backyard and sneak over into Brian’s again sometime. Right now, though, Pat’s a little tired of traveling.)
Regarding the colors of the lights, you may have tried it already, but if you darkened the whole picture considerably, the colors may be identifiable. Then you could retouch them on the final print. I’m thinking the lights were bright enough relative to the rest of the scene that they burned through the (I’m still thinking emulsion), but there might be enough color left to identify them.
I do like the shot. Most people’s workday has ended, but some are still going.
2 things stand out… the rear headlight on the consist, and the fact that the bottom head of the one signal is blocked by the engine cab. If there even is a bottom head there, maybe there isn’t.
The final changes from Version III include further editing of the signals (thanks, Jeff, for the great post letting me know that it was a lunar signal…that’s why there wasn’t any color data present when I was trying to edit it!), and cloning out the “hot spot” that had appeared on the last tank car as a result of the adjusted crop.
Jim - A lot of this is personal preference, but for me, the shot loses something with your edit. I kind of like the extra element that the truck added, and the silhouette forms of the signal bridge and road bridge have taken on a bit of a purple look and not the black silhouette that I kind of like for them. I’m still up in the air about the yellow in the sky. Like I said, It’s been 5 years since I was there, but I do seem to recall that it was a predominantly orange and red sunset so that’s how I processed it. Thank you for the effort, though! It’s always interesting to see different interpretations!
…Agree, the pickup doesn’t distract {for me}, anything from the scene. And I agree with Chris…The “yellow”, takes away something from it. But I do like the green signal with “that” change.
Chris, I promise to not mess with any more of your photos. At the very least I should have asked for your permission first. I was doing alot of post-processing of my own, and decided to take a break, during which I visited the forum and came upon your image; I guess I got carried away.
Me trying to ‘improve’ upon your photos is like…like…like a Chicago Bear trying to tell a Green Bay Packer how to play football.
