Monday, January 16, 2012

Turn of an Era


Camera App: iPhone4S camera in HDR mode.

Apps used for post-processing:
Iris - for cropping
ProHDR - to enhance the original photo further.
Photo Toaster - for the X-Pro effect.
TonaloptiaHD - for a black&white version.
Blender - blending the b/w version with the color version in Overlay mode neatly enhanced colors and contrast. It's a basic procedure I use quite often to enhance photos.
Pixlromantic - this app comes with a great basic bundle of effects but if you want to have them all it becomes more expensive than the legendary Hipstamatic with all of its packages. However, Pixlromatic is absolutely worth the buy. I used it on this picture to give the clouds a more dramatic appearance by using the Bluegrad light filter.
FilterStorm Pro - to de-saturate the picture a bit as well as for adding a vignetting effect. I prefer FilterStorm Pro for vignetting because the effect is well adjustable. Photo Toaster comes with a collection of vignetting effects too but all effects are too intense for my taste. I prefer a subtle transition from edges to center.
Photo Toaster again - for the frame. On the other two photos I used Photo Toaster also for the scratches on the photo of the building entrance. The scratches on the second photo had been added using King Camera because I did not want the same scratches on two different photos. King Camera's advantage is it to allow a combination of up to 3 textures which can all be adjusted separately.
A+ Signature - for the usual copyright watermark.

The sadness continues.... times are changing at the old Railroad Yard in Luxembourg-City. The old buildings have to make room for the new workshops that are urgently needed for maintenance and repairs of modern trains and locomotives. The above picture shows one of the "devastators" feasting on the debris of Roundhouse #1. The building in the background (left) is doomed to be demolished too. The pictures below show the old office building where I reported for service since January 2nd, 1990. I intentionally applied the Cross Process effect on this set of photos because I love it. Although many photo apps come with X-Pro effects, not all are really usable (to me). But I love the effect as it is provided by Photo Toaster.
Tip: If you think an effect is too intense you can change the intensity in an app that supports blending in Normal mode, such as Blender, Iris, PhotoWizard or FilterStorm Pro. Just lay the picture version with the effect over the version without effect in Normal mode. You may then adjust its intensity by moving the slider. It's like making the effect layer more or less translucent, letting the original picture shine through.





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