Train Arriving Shepherds Bush Final

This is one of the shots I took here last November. I posted a shot then with 2 trains arriving at once. I thought it worth processing this one because it is such a great location and the woman in red looking at her smartphone was such a photographic gift!

This is Shepherds Bush, one of the few underground stations in London where trains travelling in opposite directions can be caught from the same platform which makes for a great photo with a wide angle lens. I think the only other stations are 2 on the Northern Line at Clapham. At this station the only place to see both platforms is at the far end furthest from the stairs. The rest of the platform has a central barrier.

The picture was taken handheld with a Sony A700 with a Samyang 8mm fisheye lens at f8.

A standard HDR does not work too well due to the train movement between images and different colours and patterns on the trains in each image. I used the last of the 3 exposures and used the RAW file to create 2 additional exposures.

Photomatix

Outputted in Photomatix to Exposure Fusion natural setting with adjustments.  

Photoshop

First the plus 2 EV layer was copied in, excluded with a black layer mask and then a white brush used to bring up the woman in red.

Next the 0EV layer was brought in and applied with a brush to tone down highlight areas.

The straighten tool was used to to correct the slight angle in the original. An additional crop was also applied

Detail was brought back in with Topaz adjust with vibrant presets group with crisp preset with adjustments. Some areas, mainly highlights were excluded from the effect by applying Topaz on a duplicate layer with a layer mask.

Brightness was reduced using the brightness/contrast adjustment layer and using a layer mask to reduce brightness only in the roof to bring attention more on the trains.

Vibrance adjustment layer was increased by 20 points.

Hue saturation adjustment layer was used to increase red saturation a little.

Layers flattened before going on to sharpening.

First 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 45 amount and 45 radius. A mask was used to partly exclude the effect from highlights.

The clone brush was used for tidy up and especially to remove the large blown out highlight from the lights in the roof.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Below are the Before and After images. First the middle of the 3 exposures. Then the tonemapped image and then the final result.

Original at 0EV

Train Arriving Shepherds Bush original

Tonemapped image

Train Arriving Shepherds Bush Tonemapped

Final Image

Train Arriving Shepherds Bush Final

For Licence see Train Arriving Shepherds Bush

Edwin Jones