The Sun goes down over Luxembourg City Main Station

Camera App: BracketMode

Additional Apps used for post processing:
ProHDR - for a HDR picture that served as the base to do this simulated oil painting.
SimplyHDR - to enhance the first HDR picture further.
Blender - ... and Blender again... I don't remember how often I used Blender on this picture until I received the desired result. I blend the second HDR with the first one, and the results I also blend again and again.
ArtistaOil - for an oil painting of my HDR picture.
MonoPix - for a black & white layer. Blending in a b/w layer in Overlay mode enhances contrast and colors.
Photo fx - for a pencil drawing with strong outlines. I blend that one in to bring back some details in the oil painting which looked nice but a bit too blurred, after my taste.
TouchRetouch - for some touchups. There was a flag on the right edge that was way too close to the edge so I removed it.
PicGrunger - for the canvas effect. I used Burlap for texture, Aged for effect and Block Party for style, but set the slider to full left (zero) because I only wanted the texture.
Camera+ - for a little more Vibrancy. I saved that result, then re-imported it to apply the magic Clarity filter. The result was stunning! The overall picture got much brighter and the details of the darker areas came out nicely. But the picture was too bright now so I went back to Blender again to blend it with the previous version in Normal mode.
I then transferred my results to the PC to check them on the big screen. I discovered the texture coming out a bit too strong so I went back to my iPhone again to blend it with the non Burlap version in Normal mode. The result was what I expected to get - great!
Camera+ - again, to add the Vintage frame.
SP PhotoTada - to add the Taveler frame. All other sliders set to zero (= full left). But then I discovered the frame overlapping the Vintage frame a bit too much so I went back to the Vintage frame version and loaded it in...
FilterStorm4 - to add a 27% white frame without inner shadow. Then I went back to...
SP PhotoTada - - now I could add my desired framed without it overlapping too much.
TIP: If your desired frame is taking too much of your picture, create a place holder frame in FilterStorm first. A place holder frame is a sizable, flat uni-color frame that FilterStorm adds AROUND your picture, not over it. Then apply the frame you really want to have. That frame will then be placed over the place holder frame, not over your picture, so it will look like the frame was added around the picture, not over it. You better do a test with the desired frame first. Save that result and estimate how large it might be, then add a place holder frame in FilterStorm of about the same size. Save the picture and you are ready to add your final frame! If you aren't satisfied maybe because the place holder frame was too large just go back to FilterStorm and try again with a different percentage frame.
A+ Signature - for the usual copyright watermark.

Last week as the weather was still sunny I took the occasion of a break at Luxembourg main station to take some shots. I made the photos for this picture from the foot bridge that goes over the tracks. Because it was in the afternoon there wasn't much action at the station and now as there is winter, the sun was already very low. It was big fun to work on this picture today. It took a little while to get it done but that was mainly because I did a lot of testing and tried a lot of things before the outcome finally was what I expected.
Below are the photos that served to create this picture. They could have been better, had I taken my time to set the exposure measuring point manually in BracketMode.

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The Beauty of Destruction, part 7 - Old No.3

Camera App: BracketMode

Additional Apps used for processing:
ProHDR - to create a HDR picture from the shots made with BracketMode. Hower, I later discovered the HDR picture being partially unsharp which was the result of too much movement as I made the photos with BracketMode. So I decided to redo my picture, this time using only the darker photo of the set made because it was sharp all over.
SimplyHDR - to enhance the HDR picture created with ProHDR. If you want to create an HDR picture with an app that works with a set of photos make sure you don't saturate too much or your picture will look extremely over-saturated if you load it in yet another HDR app that works with single pictures, such as SimplyHDR. I was already much satisfied with the first result SimplyHDR came up with after loading my picture so I accept it the way it was and saved it.
Grungetastic - to experiment with because my the HDR version looked too boring to me. Testing various settings I finally stuck with Gritty 2 which I adapted to my likes. I pulled almost all sliders back to the left for zero effect except but for the tone slider which I left in its position. But Grunge 1, Grunge 2 and Papers had been set to full left and Borders had been set to No Border.
Blender - to blend my HDR with the Grunge version in Overlay mode, 50/50. Nice result, saved it.
PhotoForge - to create a version with High Pass filter because I wanted to add a little more sharpness. Sharpness could also have been added in Grungetastic but I haven't tested that feature yet.
Blender again - to sharpen my picture by blending it with the High Pass version in Overlay mode, 50/50 settings. Usually 50/50 looks right. To my taste more than 50% is overdoing the effect a bit.
After saving that result I was loading it again in Blender together with the HDR version before applying the Grunge effect because the picture looked a bit too greenish to me. I reduced that effect by setting the slider to 27% only, HDR loaded on the left side, greenish version loaded on the right side. Now I only needed a frame.
Grungetastic - I loaded my picture again in Grungetastic because I wanted a particular frame that I liked. Again I applied the Gritty 2 effect, pulling this time ALL of the sliders to the left, including the Tone slider, but for border I was choosing Border #13 (counted from left to right).
TouchRetouch - for minor touch-up. There had been a bright red little something laying underneath the wheel, disturbing the overall picture a bit so I removed it.
A+Signature - for the copyright watermark.

My latest picture from the "Beauty of Destruction" series shows wheel #3 of the now wrecked old electric locomotive #3609 of the National Railroad Company of Luxembourg, SNCFL. You can still see a number "3" pained in white on the wheel's glide bearing box. Attached to that box was also the speed gauge, a part that transformed the mechanical information received through the revolutions of the axle into electric tension to feed the Hasler-Bern speed indicator with in the cockpit. Also well visible are the wheel rim markings as broad yellow stripes (now bleached after long time weathering). The wheels on this type of engine had not been made in one piece but consisted of a wheel body and a rim that was shrunken onto the body in the workshops. For this purpose, the rim was heated up to a certain temperature because heating metal means the material will expand in its dimensions, hence the inner diameter got bigger and the wheel body could be inserted. Then the completed wheel was slowly cooled down, the rim shrunk again and got fixed in that way to the wheel's body. The reason for this type of railroad wheel simply was cost reduction because it was less expensive to replace a set of rims than replacing a complete axle with full body wheels. But like the advantage of this type of wheel was it to easily shrink a rim onto a wheel body, the disadvantage was that the rim could loosen again especially during a prolonged application of the brakes. Then the cast steel brake pads heated the rim up through friction. In the result the rim was loosening and turning on the wheel body. Under extreme conditions a wheel could be falling apart, with the certainly disastrous result of a heavy derailment of a train. To avoid this, the engineer had to check the markings on the wheel especially when preparing an engine for the day. The greatest railroad disaster as the result of a broken rim was the derailment and crash of the German high speed ICE 844 train "Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen" in 1998. The link goes to a video report on YouTube taken from a German TV documentation. I added this one because I couldn't find a suitable English report. But even if you don't understand German, the pictures show it all. In case of the ICE884 the train did not derail because a rim was overheating but because there had been fissures in it which had not been discovered due to technical inspections not being made.

How to: Smart-Sharpen Photos on the iPhone

Camera: Canon EOS40D

Lens: Canon 17-85mm EF USM Kit lens

Apps used:

Photoforge2 - to create a high pass layer.

Blender - to blend the high pass layer with the normal layer, slider at 100%, blending mode "Overlay". This method neatly sharpens the whole picture without adding noise. Look at the details on the jeans of the blacksmith! Zoom in and you can even see it's structure.

PhotoForge2 again - after sharpening the photo by blending the high pass layer with the normal layer I reimported the sharpened layer into PhotoForge to apply a Lomo filter as well as to add a white frame.

A+Signature - to add my copyright watermark

Some apps include the option to sharpen a picture but no matter what app I tried I realized that even the best apps end up with a lot of noise after sharpening, no matter if you are using PS Express, FilterStorm3, Iris or whatever. For that reason I applied sharpening filters only modestly. But I always wished to have the possibility to use the same procedure for smart-sharpening that I use in PhotoShop CS5 where I create a copy of my original layer, then apply a high pass filter to that layer, go to the layer's blending options and choose "Overlay" from the menu - et voilà the picture is crystal clear and sharp. On the slider one can adjust the amount of sharpening. Sometimes 100% is a bit too much so you need to adjust a lower setting.

Ok, that's for PS on the big screen. Now I finally found a way to do the same thing on the iPhone, which will also work on the iPad. Currently PhotoForge2 seems to be the only app that comes with a high pass filter (as far as I know, but I may be wrong indeed since I don't know all the apps). I apply that filter to my original picture and save it as a new picture (=layer). Don't worry if your screen turns all gay after applying the filter cause you need to move the slider to the right to see an effect. I used a value of about 200. You don't need to adjust it to exactly 200.00 which is quite impossible. Just use any value close to 200.

After saving that picture I opened Blender where I added the original picture plus the high pass picture for blending. Settings: Blending mode "Overlay", Slider to 100%, original picture on the left, high pass picture on the right. Please see the screenshots below. Do you see the difference? The first picture is unsharpened, the second picture is sharpened:

I applied the same editing procedures to a set of six photos I made one day in June of 2009 as the blacksmith was at the stables to give my daughter's horse Billie a manicure. I asked him for his permission to make photos while he works and he agreed. Billie is a very gentle horse. She truly enjoys to have her hooves cared for - well, but that's part of the female character, isn't it ;o)?

 

The apps that I used on this set are all top notch apps on the long list of photo editing apps, not just because of the possibilities they provide to create beautiful pictures but also because all of them don't ruin the original photo resolution on saving. I processed all of the above photos in original resolution of 3888x2592px. The iPhone needed some time for processing but this wasn't much more than it needs to process original iPhone pictures. I tested this on a Hipstamatic photo that I also sharpened. See below: 

 

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