mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

I don't do spot color often but I thought it might work for this shot. Any thoughts?

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Delderby Loc: Derby UK

I think it works very well - subduing the color and blurring the BW is masterful.

sueyeisert Loc: New Jersey

Like it

joehel2 Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

Beautifully done. I would have loved it if there were vintage cars in the lot. Thanks for sharing it.

kpmac Loc: Ragley, La

It works for this one.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

Very nice result!

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

I like what you did. Would be fun, as someone suggested, to composite in some old cars too - just for something to do

Re composition, would it have been possible for you to get in the entire roof, or would that have meant standing in the street?

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

I certainly would have loved it if there had the vintage cars there, Or no cars at all. I had considered cloning the cars out, but I think that any effort to do that would have left me with way too many unpleasant artifacts. Here is another version with some blur applied to the cars and the parking signs removed from the wall. Not sure if this is better or worse.

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mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

In retrospect it was just bad composition. At the time, I was more interested in the painted wall. I took it at 24mm, but I was using my Sigma 18-35 f/1.8 so I could have gone wider. Normally I use my Canon 15-85 as my walk around, but we were visiting a museum right across the street from this parking lot so I had my faster zoom mounted for use in the lower light of the museum. By the way, here is an image of that museum, literally right across the street. I believe it's the same tree in both images. Roanoke, VA is an interesting smaller city.

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Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Wow, that's a beautiful building, and very interesting with all the reflections.

I compared the blurred vehicles side by side with your original and I'm undecided. In some ways, the blur emphasizes the bright highlights.

I lived in the DC area for more than 7 years and don't think I visited Roanoke. Maybe drove through on the way to Virginia Beach and Norfolk?

Jim-Pops Loc: Granbury, Texas

I like your first one. Would be a great advertisement. I don't think the blurred cars add anything as the re sign stands out above anything else.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

The museum is the Taubman Museum of Art which specializes in modern art. Thanks for the positive feedback on that image, especially the windows. I don't normally show "before" images unless specifically asked, but I'm making an exception for this one. I made perspective edits to correct some significant distortion issues. I made various sharpness, contrast and vibrancy edits. I also used a number of different local adjustments to address different areas of the image independently. This included the use of local masks to allow me to extract a large amount of deep shadow reflection detail from the window areas. I used DXO's incredible PRIME noise reduction to virtually eliminate any signs of noise from those deep shadow detail extractions. The person I eliminated from the sidewalk outside the museum is actually my wife. She is a doctor at a medical center here in NJ. This was taken during better times. She always wants me to remove her from my images. Attached is the original along side my final version again for comparison.

With regard to the parking lot, as I said, I wasn't so sure about the addition of the blur to the cars myself. I'm always experimenting.

By the way, it's a 241 mile drive south-west of DC to Roanoke so I'm not surprised you never went there. It's not a destination for most people unless you are from the region. We were passing through on out way to Winston-Salem, NC and then to our final destination Asheville, NC.

Original unprocessed

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Processed in PhotoLab

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mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Agree, blurring the cars was just an experiment. They don't all yield fruit.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

I think including the "before" when creating a topic in Post Processing Forum is an excellent way to help others become excited about learning processing, whether it's the "playful" kind or the basics.

Thanks again.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

You are correct. I guess it's just ego to want people to see the end result rather than the less than exciting starting point.