Long day on the bike in the 40 degree cold rain. Still better than a lot of other options. Got home after dark. Happened to have the Nikon along. I've been meaning to get a shot of a sign on top of a downtown theater. So I did.
I had thrown the Gorilla Pod into the trunk. With the Nikon set up on the Givi trunk I took a few shots. This was my very first one and was actually one of the best. Settings were at ISO 200, 1/3 second, f/8 and at a 102mm focal length.
It's pretty cool how the neon lights up the building around it. Of course, you know some of us can't leave well enough alone! You also know what's coming, don't you?
Recently, several of us seem to have been setting trends for each other. I did some black and white. So Bluekat did a post with a black and white photo with a touch of color. You can see it here. So then Mike did a post with the Toys R Us logo done in the same treatment. You can see that here.
As I'm looking at this photo, I'm considering the possibilities. I am using Photoshop Elements 7. For the life of me, I haven't been able to find a history brush. You'll have to see the tutorial, but basically it means converting a color photo to black and white or grayscale. Then the history brush restores select portions to the original color version. Elements 7 doesn't seem to have that. So I did it the long way. There's an option to saturate and desaturate a photo. So I literally painted the photo into greyscale. A big brush for the large areas and a small brush where I carefully traced around the sign. Now my mouse finger and hand are falling off. There has got to be a better way. It might entail spending the money for one of the CS versions.
Once done with the saturation exercise, I tweaked the contrast and brightness just a bit. Despite the fatigue factor, I think the finished product is pretty striking. As you can see, it's almost 11 PM. As an end to the day I'm posting the photo for your feedback. I hope you like it as much as I do. Time for bed. Good night!
Miles and smiles,
Dan
