Old Tractor + photoshop playing

[iceman]

Hi guys.

Took this photo of the old tractor up at Lostock on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately the nice blue sky ended up almost white :( Must've had the aperture set too wide? Can't wait to use my new polarising filter.

Anyway there's 4 variations of the image below, having a bit of a play in photoshop to make part of the image black and white to see if makes the picture any better.

I'm not sure which I like best, but the "quick mask" technique to select part of an image (and then make it monochrome) will certainly be useful on some subjects.

The first one is the original, the second attachment is greyscale with brightness and contrast adjusted, and the third and fourth are the variations of the first one.

Comments welcome.

[acropolite]

Mike, with the lighting as it was your new ND graduated filter (or Blue) would have helped tone down the sky. Another technique used is to take 2 exposures, one to correctly expose the sky and one the foreground and stack the images.

[venus]

That tracktor pic would have been awesome for the "rusty" pic comp a while ago..........

[iceman]

Thanks for the suggestions Phil!

And you're right Lydia :doh: I was looking for something like this around my area but didn't get a chance to find anything in time for the competition.

[RB]

Interesting subject matter Mike. I love imaging old tractors, trucks, machinery etc.

[Robby]

Your wasted Mike!.. :) Why are you in IT?

[iceman]

It pays the bills :P

[ving]

what was your aperture setting on the pic mike?

[Jonathan]

Nice pictures Mike. It's a pity about the blue sky getting over exposed. One way around it is to use fill flash. That will put more light into the darker foreground and allow you to get the correct exposure for the sky. I couldn't tell you how the light meter and flash work on your Canon, but it should be easy to get the correct settings.

[acropolite]

If it's like my 20D, fill flash is dead easy, just select one of the creative modes and press the flash button on the side to pop up the flash. :camera:

[iceman]

So how is fill flash different to normal flash?

[janoskiss]

I had a play too. It was fun. :)

The tractor is mostly red and magenta with a bit of blue. The rest of the image is green & cyan + few isolated patches of blue + red. So you're better off working on the colours separately. You don't get the halo/boundary artefact between the tractor and the surrounds that way. Only a little bit of manual (de)selection is needed for the few elements with blue & red in the background.

I've attached my GIMP tweaks with background grey, tractor grey and another with the tractor dipped in hydrochloric acid. :D

[Jonathan]

Have a read of this Mike, http://www.nigeldennis.com/tips_9.htm or http://www.danheller.com/tech-fillflash.html
I really don't know anything about how it works on your Canon, but it should be pretty straight forward. It will be in your camera's manual, look for TTL (Through-The-Lens) exposure control. TTL exposure means that the camera will monitor the amount of light coming through the lens from the flash and automatically switches it off when the correct exposure is made. You should also be able to reduce the output of the flash.

[iceman]

Nice job Steve, thanks for the tips.

Thanks for links Jonathan, I actually read about it last night in a photography magazine I bought, and they had an article about fill flash (good timing).

I'll have to check the manual to see if I can reduce the intensity of the flash in the 350D.

[ving]

*cough*

[iceman]

Whoops sorry,

Shutter: 1/80s
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 100
FL: 18mm

[ving]

thnx mike :)