John Street Roundhouse Part 2 - The War Engine

Today's HDR image is that of Canadian Pacific 7020, a switcher type locomotive. A switcher is used to pull out freight cars from different industry to put together a complete train when its larger more powerful counterpart takes over for the long haul. When the train reaches its destination another switcher breaks up the cars to deliver them as required. This particular model is one of many "war engines" acquired to meet increased demands during WWII. It was built by American Locomotive Company in partnership with General Electric in 1944 and was donated by CP in 1986 to City of Toronto for a museum on this spot.

 As before, this is the resulting image from hand held three shot exposures merged in Photomatix. Original images lacked details on the sky and failed to capture the bright orange on engine body and rusting front.  



Original image at normal exposure

I wanted to bring out orangish glow and increase rust texture to give it more "worn out" look. Tonemapping in Photomatix did a superb job of combining three exposures to increase color saturation in all areas of the photo. But it also made the sky look "dirty", as is the case with daytime HDR. So I mixed it with -2 exposure image to mask in the sky. Then I applied Lucis Art's "exposure" filter to give a slight pop. Finally I applied "Pro Contrast" filter from Nik's Color Effex. Here is the final product.
  

Final product. Click to see larger version.

Take a look at my previous entry here. Please come back for the last entry of this series featuring final locomotive engine in HDR from John Street Roundhouse.

John Street Roundhouse - part 1

My affinity with locomotives is a direct result of early experiences travelling on these magnificant machines, most of which took place in my native land Bangladesh. I vividly remember the thrills of waking up early to catch a train; gazing out the window to see gentle rice fields streached to horizons; countless rivers with plenty of activities and the lively platforms. I also remember seeing with interest locomotive engines bearing Canada's flag hinting at its birthplace. So it was with pleasure I discovered one of Toronto Railway Heritage Centre's feature site known as John Street Roundhouse located right beside my workplace. Recently I had the opportunity to bring my camera on a brief visit to capture some of the engines on display. The Roundhouse is currently closed for the season and slated to reopen in Spring of 2011. While the crew works on restoring artefectss, there are a few engines sitting on the tracks including one on turntable. And the best part is its all free!
The day was windy with sun hiding behind gray clouds. There wasn't enough ambient lighting for single exposures to capture the vibrant engine colors and I didn't have a tripod with me. So I opted for handheld bracketed exposures with hope of turning them into HDR. As it takes time to process these multi image exposures I'll post the results in installments.
Today's HDR image is that of CLC Whitcomb 50 Ton Centre Cab Switcher on Turntable. I dropped on my knees and inserted camera through an opening in railing to get a low perspective shot. Setting aparture at f4.0 and exposure brackets from -2 to +2 I held the camera as firmly as I could. The resulting images seemed to captured most of the lights. Here's the middle or "anchor" image at 0 exposure, not exactly what I had in mind.

I merged and tonemapped the 3 RAW pictures in Photomatix taking care not to over saturate. This resulting image was almost what I visualized the final result to be. Since there was no ghosting I didn't need original images to mix with tonemapped one. I just opened it in Photoshop and applied Nik's "Pro Contrast" filter which brought out colors on the engine body and intensified rust colors. I also clened up noise with Imagenomic Noiseware. Here is the final product:

Final product.

 Hope you come back for the next installation of this series featuring yet another locomative engine in HDR.

I carry your heart

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in

my heart) I am never without it (anywhere

I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

 E. E. Cummings



Original shot in RAW



I took this shot sometime during the Valentine's craze in a mall and forgot about it. Only recently while going through some old shots I thought this one had potential. I especially liked the juxtaposition of dangling heart and alarm. However, the white balance, luminance and overall color needed some work to make this picture more "dramatic". Fortunately it was in RAW format, so I opened it with Adobe Camera Raw and adjusted exposure and increased contrast, clarity and vibrance all the way. I also dropped saturation a little. This resulted in a yellowish tint over the entire image. Opening the image in Photoshop I applied Nik's Silver Effex Pro's "Antique Plate 1" filter. This got rid of the yellow/orange tint, but it also took out red in the heart. Layer Mask at 50% opacity brought some of the red back. Finally I applied a texture to give it a vintage look. Here is the final product.

Final product. Click to view large version.

I am dedicating this to my beloved wife, its her heart that I carry with me always...