New Meets Old

One of the things that my new venture  will allow me to do is to alter photographs to whatever extent I desire.

Previously with my photographs I endeavored to be true to what I saw.

That meant only that what I saw had to stay, but I could increase the sharpness, add contrast, etc., to make people believe that my beautiful true-to-what-I-saw photograph came from an expensive camera and lens. I could crop, and often did.

I don’t have to abide by the true-to-what-I-saw requirement anymore.

As an example, here’s a great picture of the Union Pacific 844 steam engine meeting a couple of modern Union Pacific diesel locomotives.

Union Pacific 844 is a 4-8-4 steam locomotive built in 1944. It was the last steam locomotive delivered to Union Pacific and is the only steam locomotive never retired by a major (i.e., Class 1) North American railroad.

I took that picture on November 17, 2011, just south of Palm Springs, California. It’s a beautiful picture, and was ruined only by wires running through the sky, a telephone pole bisecting one of the diesel engines, the man on the ground waving, and an ugly freight car behind the two diesel engines. I tried taking the telephone pole and man out of the picture back in 2011 and was unsuccessful. My Photoshop skills were not up to snuff. I was able to clone the wires out, but if you look real closely you can still see ghosts of where they were.

My Photoshop skills are vastly superior today than they were in November 2011, so this weekend I took the original picture and endeavored to turn it into photographic art.

I very easily removed the wires (much better this time), the telephone pole, the man on the ground waving, and even the ugly freight car behind the two diesel units. No need to crop, so I have two full diesel locomotives in the picture. My finished picture now looks like this:

I really like having both diesel units in the picture. Normally I get distressed when people go missing, but in this instance, the waving guy missing doesn’t bother me at all.

After getting a picture that I was happy with, I resorted to all the filters in Photoshop, Photo-Paint, and PaintShop Pro to get photographic art:

In a future post this week, I’ll show you how to easily, quickly, and miraculously remove those dastardly wires that seem to ruin so many pictures. All without the benefit of alcohol……………..

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend James Frimmer, Realtor, CDPE
CA BRE #01458572

If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!