Underneath the Arches

[Pete Askew]

This is a shot taken under Lange Brücke in Potsdam a week or so ago. It was processed from the raw file using ColorFX 4 to see what sort of monochrome effects could be achieved by combining the filters: in this case mono conversion, paper toning, film grain and vignette. I only added the border in PS after otherwise everything else was done from LR into ColorFX.

Leica M9 + Voightländer Nokton 40mm f1:1.4 SC

 

[Paul Lange]

To some that may be just a photo of the underside of a bridge but to me I see it as a wonderful composition. Also as some may have guessed the subject matter is right up my street too.

 

[Dan Cattermole]

Whoa!! Now that's fantastic pete! I'd could be let loose for hours under there with a some torches and wire wool...... I feel the light mummy visiting my area again soon......

 

[Pete Askew]

Thanks guys. I shall probably re-process this image at some point. The main purpose this tis version was to see what could be achieved using ColorFX 4 alone rather than my normal process. Still, I'm quite pleased with the effect. I must revisit these arches as the contrast between the the soft light under bridge and the sunlight outside was a bit too high and a more overcast day would have yielded at better image I think.

 

[Hamish Gill]

That is very nice!
Care to talk me through the process?

 

[Pete Askew]

Minor adjustments for exposure in LR then edited with ColorFX 4. Applied mono conversion then added a paper tone filter and adjusted colour etc to suit. Next I added a film grain filter and increased grain amount per pixel and grain hardness. Then I added a vignette filter and reduced size and changed it to oval and reduced opacity to about 40%. Saved changes (wished I'd saved the recipe now because I quite like it) back to LR and then opened in PS to add 15px border and saved back to LR. Made minor change to contrast with the curves control and exported as a JPEG (sRGB colour space) for upload to Photobucket. Using the multiple filter route allows you to go back and forth and tweak them both for effect and opacity (rather like using layers in PS) before saving back to LR. Saving the combination that you used as a recipe means you can re-use it on other images (and select the recipe directly in PS) as well as share them like LR Presets and PS Actions.

 

[Brian Moore]

I don't understand all that technical stuff but I do understand that I love the tones and composition Pete. Beautiful image.

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Very effective Pete - the girders almost have a glow to them.

Love the simple repeating forms, and the complexity of the final effect

 

[Tim Pindar]

Very nice shot. My kind of picture.

 

[Darren Bradley]

Love the lighting and tones of this photo. And that symmetry on those struts is pretty nice. Engineering as art, as it were.