Team GB Mens Olympic Road Race Box Hill Loop Final

Last Saturday was the Men’s Olympic Road race which included a 9 lap circuit including Box Hill in Surrey before returning north to finish on the Mall in Lomdon.

This image is my favourite of the many I took showing 4 of the 5 riders in Team GB including Bradley Wiggins as the main focus.

The picture was taken handheld with a Sony A700 with a Sigma 10-20 wide angle zoom at 17mm. I used ISO 100 to gain a high shutter speed of 1/500^th second. The image was opened in Camera Raw and 2 additional images were created at +2EV and -2Ev for a “false HDR” with each image having Noiseware Pro applied.  A Photoshop action I had saved was used to create the extra images automatically. The images were saved as tiffs.  

Photomatix

Outputted in Photomatix to detail enhancer. Click the Camera name top right on flickr for this image for Exif details and the settings used.

Photoshop

In Photoshop a pan blur was applied using Topaz lens effects. A layer mask was used to remove the blur from the cyclists to make them stand out. This involved a lot of fine detail level brush work on the layer mask.

Topaz Adjust, Vibrance clarity preset.

Levels and curves to enhance.

Vibrance increased 34 points

Layers flattened before going on to sharpening.

Duplicate layer Noiseware Pro and standard sharpening with Unsharp mask

Tidy up with the Clone Brush

BEFORE AND AFTER

Below are the Before and After images. First the original image. Then the tonemapped image and then the final result after pan blur and adjustments.

Original at 0EV

Team GB Mens Olympic Road Race Box Hill Loop Original

Tonemapped image Detail Enhancer

Team GB Mens Olympic Road Race Box Hill Loop Tonemapped

Final Image

Team GB Mens Olympic Road Race Box Hill Loop Final

Edwin Jones