The Beauty of Destruction, part 8

Camera App: ClearCam


Additional Apps used:
BigLens - to separate the background from the foreground.
TiltShiftGen - for additional blurring in the foreground.
FilterStorm4 - for a simple b/w version.
Blender - to blend the b/w version with the color version to obtain more harmonic colors because especially the background had been much over-saturated with reddish tones.
FilterStorm4 - for saturating the foreground and a mask to keep the background desaturated.
PhotoForge2 - for a High Pass version.
Blender - to add a little more sharpness to the machine. At the same time this had the nice side effect to add a little structure to the blurred background.
TouchRetouch - for minor touchups.
Pixlromantic - for the frame.
A+Signature - for the copyright watermark.


November 21, 2011 @ 03.11pm - Demolition work at Luxembourg Railroad Yard continues. Gates had already been removed from Roundhouse #1. Turning table #1 also cut into pieces and removed, this machine now hammers the turning table pitch apart with a huge jackhammer.

The Beauty of Destruction, part 4

Camera App: BracketMode

Additional Apps used for post processing:
ProHDR - to create a HDR picture from the photos made with BracketMode.
SimplyHDR - to enhance that HDR picture further.
PhotoWizard - to create a nice Crayon version of the HDR picture.
Blender - to blend crayon with HDR 50/50 in Normal mode.
Pixlromantic - for the frame called Sand and a b/w effect called Tom. I saved both versions, color+Sand and Tom+Sand, then I blend both in Blender to reduce color saturation a bit.
PhotoForge2 - for a High Pass effect.
Blender - to blend High Pass with the Pixlromantic version 50/50 in Overlay mode to enhance sharpness.
FilterStorm3 - to apply a mask because I wanted more sharpness only on the molten and burned steel surface.
TouchRetouch - for some minor corrections. There had been a few drops of burned steel that appeared just as white spots in the background so I removed them.
A+Signature - for the copyright watermark

Old electric locomotive #3609 is laying in pieces, her body brutally ripped apart by the claws of a huge wrecking machine; her entrails cut apart by a cutting torch.... This had been a part of her braking system. The part in the background is one of the brake blocks, which had been made of cast steel.

In previous posts I described how to use a Pencil version of your picture made in Photo fx to blend it with the normal version in Blender to receive a nice outlining effect. I now discovered an even better solution because PhotoWizard includes a really beautiful Crayon filter that gives you a beautiful picture you can either use as it is or use it to blend it in Blender. But PhotoWizard has much more to offer than just that. Another app that I recommend because of its nice filters and frames is Pixlromantic.

Below is the Instagram version of this picture. Additionally to the effects described above I used the Sophia effect which gave the picture a blueish tint on the burned steel. Also I did not sharpen the burned steel surface but I did not apply one of the typical Instagram filters either cause I did not like any of them on this picture.

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The Beauty of Destruction, part 3

Camera App: BracketMode

Additional Apps used for post processing:

ProHDR - to create the basic HDR picture from the photos made with QuickPix
SimplyHDR - to enhance that basic HDR picture.
AutoPainter - to create an Aquarell version.
ArtistaHaiku - to create an ink version, almost an ink drawing with only the outlining and just a little bit of color.
Blender - to blend the Aquarell version with the ink version, then used again to blend the result with the HDR version. I wanted to give my picture a touch of a painting, not pure HDR and no pure painting either.
FilterStorm3 - for a Vignette effect. I wanted only a slight vignette effect so I needed an app that allows full control over it's intensity. FilterStorm3 does a perfect job here.
Camera+ - I used the Vibrant effect here to enhance the colors. In Camera+ this effect can be adjusted with a slider.
iDarkroom - for the Black frame.
A+Signature - for the copyright watermark.

Yesterday I still had time before driving my first train of the day so I took my profit out of the situation to take some more shots of the scrap yard where the old electric locomotives 3609 and 3612 are currently being wrecked. This picture shows a now broken porcelain isolator apparently (but not necessarily)  from the roof top of either of the two old engines.

Rise of the Orchid!

Happy Halloween everybody!

 I created this picture based on a photo that I took with Quickpix of an Orchid that I placed on our kitchen table, under the kitchen light - nothing else. Apps that I used? Well it's Halloween so guess yourself how I did it! The photo that served for the base of this creation is displayed below. Just take a close look at the evil Orchid - do you see the tongue that is licking for you and the teeth waiting for a bite on you? Well... ;o).

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The Beauty of Decay, Part 3.

Camera Apps: 
BracketMode
Hipstamatic - for the b/w pictures in the photo slide. Lens: Melodie, Film: A0 DLX


Additional Apps used:
iCameraHDR - for the HDR pictures in color.
SimplyHDR - to create two different HDR pictures with darker and lighter settings
Blender - to blend those two HDRs into one with 50/50 slider setting in Normal mode which nicely enhanced the picture.
MonoPhix - for a b/w version of the HDR picture. I usually chose a green filter with low shadow darkening
Blender again - this picture did not need too much blending because it turned already out very nicely after processing it in iCameraHDR. I created a b/w version to blend with the color version to obtain better contrast and richer colors but it didn't need a high setting of the slider to enhance it. Less is sometimes more. 
Snapseed - for adding some slight Drama effect plus enhancing saturation slightly.
PicGrunger - for a nice Grunge version with Metal structure. Even with the effect slider set to zero the picture turns out darker after processing but like I wanted only the frame I was loading the grunge version and the original version in FilterStorm3 to erase the dark picture from the frame so the lighter version came trough.EasyMerge - to quickly create a photo slide with four Hipstamaticphotos of the old steam engine.
As usual I added my copyright watermark in A+Signature.

This is the last one of the rusted wheels pictures of the old steam engine 5621. I enjoyed a lot making it because the structures of the rust and the colors turned out nicely.

The Beauty of Decay, Part 2.

Camera Apps: 
BracketMode
Hipstamatic - for the b/w pictures in the photo slide. Lens: Melodie, Film: A0 DLX


Additional Apps used:
iCameraHDR - for the HDR pictures in color.
PerfectlyClear - to enhance the previouly created HDR picture.
MonoPhix - for a b/w versions of the HDR picture.
Blender - to blend a lot! Again I must say that I did not keep track of the different steps for there had been too many. As usual I created b/w versions to blend with color versions to obtain better contrast and richer colors and I also used Blender to sharpen the final pictures a bit by application of my technique to create a high pass version in PhotoForge, then blend it with the normal version in Blender with mode set to Overlay. In case of this picture I always set the slider to 50/50, hence in the middle.
Snapseed - to create the inner black frame as well as for adding some Drama effect.
PhotoShop Express - to create the outer black frame.
FilterStorm3 - to erase the color from the frame.
TouchRetouch - for minor touch-ups.
EasyMerge - to quickly create a photo slide with four Hipstamaticphotos of the old steam engine.
As usual I added my copyright watermark in A+Signature.

Some more pictures of the old steam engine 5621. In the meantime I received some interesting information about the engine via the Face Book page "Lëtzebuerger Eisebunnsfrënn" (railroad friends Luxembourg). So I learned that 5621 was bought from the Austrian National Railroad Company OEBB in 1978 to run it as a museum engine for tourist attraction but the general management of our railroad company wasn't much positive about the project so it ran on museum tracks in Mariembourg in Belgium (1980) and later in Losheim (Germany) from 1982-1984 In 1984 it was transferred back to Luxembourg where restoration work started but due to a lack of funds got stopped again as the engine was already very much disassembled. It's original number was OEBB 52.3504 but it received the number 5621 to run in Luxembourg. More to come - stay tuned!

The Beauty of Decay, Part 1.

Camera Apps: 
BracketMode - for the photos serving for the HDR pictures
Hipstamatic - for the b/w pictures in the photo slide. Lens: Melodie, Film: A0 DLX


Additional Apps used (as far as I remember):
iCameraHDR - for the HDR pictures in color.
PerfectlyClear - to enhance the previouly created HDR pictures. This app is really helpful to create better pictures. Unfortunately it is a memory hog, often coming up with an out of memory error when processing a second picture. In this case all you need to do is closing all the apps running in the background, then restart PerfectlyClear again. No iPhone reboot required.
MonoPhix - for b/w versions of the HDR pictures.
Blender - to blend a lot! I can't even remember how many times I blend what layers because I did not write all the steps down. But I used b/w versions to blend with color versions to obtain better contrast and richer colors and I also used Blender to sharpen the final pictures a bit by application of my technique to create a high pass version in PhotoForge, then blend it with the normal version in Blender with mode set to Overlay. In case of this picture I always set the slider to 50/50, hence in the middle.
FilterStorm3 - to create a 3 nice frame. I used 10-20-10% for the three frames.
PicGrunger - to create a grunge version of my picture with the only goal to receive a badly worn and dirty frame that I wanted on my clean picture. Here I used the Metal texture with Scratched effect.
Superimpose - to put the grunge picture over the clean picture, masking the picture to cut it from the frame so the clean picture from the background layer could appear. This was quite a bit tricky to handle on the tiny iPhone screen but it all went well. Superimpose is currently the best masking app that I know.
Checking my final picture on the big screen I found some white spots, probably bird dung that I removed using TouchRetouch.
Apparently one of the apps that I used downsized the picture slightly so I had to resize it back to 2592x1936 in Iris. I still don't know what app was responsible for that but will check that out. 
EasyMerge - to quickly create a photo slide with four Hipstamatic photos of the old steam engine.
As usual I added my copyright watermark in A+Signature.

Since long years there is a disassembled old steam engine slowly rotting away at Luxembourg railroad yard. It's number is 5621 and it is said it was a so called "Kriegslok" - a war engine ordered by the German Reichsbahn as the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg was still occupied by the Germans in WWII. The engines had been build in Austria. But then the war ended and the remaining engines of that order got delivered to the newly founded "Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer de Luxembourg  (SNCFL) - the National Railway Company of  Luxembourg. I don't know much about the complete history of engine #5621 but it was still running as a tourist attraction in the 1970s. Later it needed restoration and some bloody amateurs took it apart, not possessing the knowledge to perform a proper restoration nor having the funds for it. Now it's slowly rotting away and nobody knows if it will ever be restored to it's old beauty again. At least it is a nice subject for pictures so I took another chance yesterday to photograph it again. This picture is part one of a set of two. 

In Tribute...

Camera App: QuickPix

Additional Apps used:

SimplyHDR - to bring out the details a little more

KingCamera - for the gray metal frame.

PS Express - for the black frame

A+Signature - for the copyright watermark

Last Sunday's biking tour brought me to the little town of La Roche in the Belgian Ardennes, a place very popular among bikers who mostly come over from the Netherlands, from Germany and Luxembourg, and of course from everywhere in Belgium to enjoy riding in a beautiful region with many turns and nice little towns and villages. But more than 65 years ago, in the bad winter of 1945, the whole region had been the stage for one of the fiercest battles in the whole WWII conflict - the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, abandoned or knocked down tanks of both sides, artillery guns and pieces of wreckage had been put on display to remember the events. In La Roche, at the entrance to the little museum, one can see a piece of wreckage from a US Sherman tank, with this plaque attached to it. With no words but the words on the plaque, the look of the piece of wreckage tells all about the fighting that been going on in the region. From the broken edges of this huge piece of heavy metal one can tell that the Sherman tank this part belonged to had been exploded, most probably after a direct hit maybe fired from a German 88mm gun carried by Tiger and Panther tanks, instantly killing the whole crew of the Sherman. This piece was the front bow of the Sherman tank, with a driving wheel and part of the chain still attached to it. The surface of the steel is deeply scratched by many impacts from various caliber weapons, proving that the Sherman tank must have been in the middle of a very fierce fight before it got hit by an unknown German gun. Seeing such quiet witnesses of the tragedy of war always moves my heart deeply, so I made some photos of it - to remember.

Life on a Thistle, Part I.

Camera App: QuickPix with permanent flashlight switched on


Additional Apps used:
Iris PhotoSuite - for cropping a square 1:1 part from the original rectangular photo and resampling it to 2048x2048px.
Photo fx - for creating a pencil layer, pencil effect #5, both sliders to 100%.
Blender - to blend the pencil layer with the original photo. This was done to enhance outlining and contrast. Setting: Multiply, slider to 100%.
Blender - a second time to blend the first result again with the original photo. Setting: Normal mode, 50%. That way the flashlight effect was greatly reduced.
FilterStorm3 - to sharpen the photo a bit more.
DynamicLight - just a little bit to enhance the background.
PS Express - to reduce noise. Setting: slider to 65%.
Effects - for the nice frame. I found it a bit too large, so I used...
PS Express - to add a second black frame.
A+Signature - to add my copyright watermark.


Reading an article at www.lifeinlofi.com about the latest version of FilterStorm, I saw an ad on that page for a camera app called "QuickPix" that made me curious because I always wanted to have a camera app that loads and shoots quickly. Testing it I must say that QuickPix fully keeps its promises. It loads very fast and it shoots burts for as long as you keep the button pressed, 2 photos per second, which is quite fast for the iPhone. Also very positive is the flashlight that can be quickly switched on permanently. That feature came in handy the sun was going down and I discovered a thistle flower in the wild meadow behind my house. I had always been fascinated by thistles as they are such beautiful plants, a micro cosmos of its own with insects living on it. I discovered little black bugs and ladybirds eating greenflys. Shooting some photos I was amazed about the sharpness and the details pictured by the iPhone4's camera. The original photo looked already very good. I only processed it further to enhance it even more. This is the first one about life on a thistle, with some more to come.