What a wonderful choice, flamboyant colors within graceful shapes emphasized by the camera angle. The car is the star, the rest is simply distraction, the colors and shapes being a useless mishmash that do not contrast nor blend with the subject. SO--out with them! In Photoshop, I selected the car, polished up the selection with "Select and Mask," reversed the mask, and put in the background as a gradient fill to make the colors pop and the gradient to go with the lighting (loved the sunlight-pierced shadow). First time, had two bad spots in the mask, so again polished up the selection with "Select and Mask."

I also darkened the shadow in the blower intake, because I liked that feature.

Loved the shot, loved working on it. Good eye, good technique.

Bill, thanks so much for this topic! It's a fascinating view of a super-cool "form." For me, the other elements distracted. I wanted to think a little outside the box, so instead of a vignette or replacing the background, I used a threshold filter to take everything to extreme b&w, which also reduced details, then created a layer mask to reveal the colors where I wanted.

I also did a bit of selective dodge (brighten) on the headlights and grill, and a little more contrast for pop of colors.

One major issue - which I hope someone can address with an easy fix - is the turquoise color that is reflected onto the fender on the right side. For the most part, I like the rest of the reflections, though perhaps not the large wheel.

With the threshold filter being a separate layer, you can play with blend modes. I was limited since there is no color in the background, but I did get one interesting look with "overlay" blend mode.

I encourage questions and commentary about the pp used by anyone who participates here - and in future topics. Thanks again, Bill. Congrats on the sale!!

If I've gone too impressionistic, I apologize. Hard to teach old dogs... You'll show us yours before this topic dies down, right?

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So while a video production of mine was compiling, thought I would take a couple minutes to just play - don't have time to work on others photos, so far behind on my own. Used Paint Shop Pro 2019 Ultimate, in just three quick steps - actually took me UNDER 2 minutes - Saturation, then Clone Brush, then Depth of Field tool, wanting to keep the concept of the original photo. Deeper color, then really did not like all the people, equipment & photographer's reflection on the bottom nor the reflection of the '56 Chevy's wheel thus a quick clone brush. Finally Depth of Field to blur the sides while still keeping where the photo was taken. Back to my work.

In another topic it's being discussed if this section is about impressionism or photography. Thinking it was going impressionist, I drifted off. I've been reminded the section is about anything you can do to a digital capture to make a better story out of it. So...., here goes.

Lake Havasu City has large group of residents that build, restore and modify cars. There is no question that it is another "art form". I spent a couple winters there and struggled to find a way to "capture" the story of the "car art". Toward the end I tried to shoot odd compositional angles. Nothing ever looked good on the screen in Lightroom.

This was shot at high noon at a mall parking lot car show. I used a Sony RX100 (original version). Uploaded is a RAW straight to JPEG from Lightroom.

What can be done to make it highlight the artistic body and paint work? Can it be a "wall hanger"?

You have already made it into a great wallhanger that illustrates your own vision so this is simply a play, not carefully done but gets the idea across. In this case, Photoshop's "select subject" did a pretty good job of the selection, there's a few nicks and problems that would merit more cleaning up if it were for show. I love experimenting with PP for old cars, both realistically and imaginatively. Had a fine time collecting the many specimens available in Havana last fall, and I'll be playing with them for a long time.

Car shows are one of the many places that SOOC photos often leave us short, because of the crowded parking areas, the humans who won't be still (and aren't photogenic), and often the lighting. So whether we are creating a realistic version minus the distractions or a creative version that goes somewhere else, Photoshop (or similar) is our friend!

What a wonderful choice, flamboyant colors within graceful shapes emphasized by the camera angle. The car is the star, the rest is simply distraction, the colors and shapes being a useless mishmash that do not contrast nor blend with the subject. SO--out with them! In Photoshop, I selected the car, polished up the selection with "Select and Mask," reversed the mask, and put in the background as a gradient fill to make the colors pop and the gradient to go with the lighting (loved the sunlight-pierced shadow). First time, had two bad spots in the mask, so again polished up the selection with "Select and Mask."

I also darkened the shadow in the blower intake, because I liked that feature.

Loved the shot, loved working on it. Good eye, good technique.