Mark Cavendish Sprint Lineup FinalMark Cavendish Sprint Lineup

This is a picture from the final stage of the Tour of Britain held in London Sunday afternoon 22 September 2013.

The race was the last stage. Starting from Whitehall there was a circuit which went along the Thames Embankment road to turn by the Tower of London and then back past Big Ben and back into Whitehall. I based myself on the corner by the houses of Parliament. This is on the last of 10 circuits and the last corner and Mark Cavendish, 2^nd in line, has positioned himself for the final sprint which he won.

The picture was taken handheld with a Sony A700 with a Sigma 28-200 zoom at 60mm. A 1000 ISO was used to get a

Camera Raw

Edits were carried out in RAW to improve exposure, clarity and vibrance. An adjustment brush was used to darken the background and lighten the riders.

Photoshop

The image was cropped to focus on the riders.

The image was adjusted in Topaz lens effects to add a zoom blur. The zoom centre was fixed on Mark Cavendish. The effect was applied on a duplicate layer and a layer mask. A brush was then used to exclude more of the other cyclists from the effect and make them stand out.

Topaz adjust clarity was applied with a layer mask to the cyclists excluding the rest of the picture.

Levels adjusted.

Hue Saturation and vibrance increased.

Hue saturation layer reds used with a layer mask to tone down the reds on the left.

Layers flattened before going on to sharpening.

Duplicate layer Noiseware Pro and a little sharpening.

Second duplicate layer with mask to apply extra sharpening and contrast with low amount and high radius using Unsharp mask (Clarity Effect) The settings were 37 amount and 37 radius. A layer mask was used to exclude this effect from highlights.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Below are the Before and After images. First the original and then the final result.

Original

Mark Cavendish Sprint Lineup OriginalMark Cavendish Sprint Lineup

Final Image

Mark Cavendish Sprint Lineup FinalMark Cavendish Sprint Lineup

For licences and prints see Mark Cavendish Sprint Lineup

Edwin Jones