DLR Warp Speed FinalDLR Warp Speed Final

This view was taken on the Docklands Light Railway as the train was in the tunnel which takes it out from Bank Station under the City. The railway is automatic, no driver except a supervisor who sits in one of the front passenger seats. This gives a great opportunity as there are passenger seats at the front and back of the train. I put the camera lens flat against the window to cut out reflections.

I used shutter priority and settled on a shutter speed of 0.7 seconds for the best feel of movement.

The picture was taken with a Sony A700 with a Sigma 10-20 wide angle zoom at 10mm. Taken handheld  in RAW. The image was opened in Camera Raw and 2 additional images were created at =2EV and -2Ev for a “false HDR”  A Photoshop action I had saved was used to create the extra images automatically.

First Topaz DeNoise using the RAW moderate preset.

Next Topaz Clarity was used to enhance edges.

Next Topaz Detail was used with Micro Contrast Enhancement II as a preset and some adjustments.

Various colour balance adjustments were made both generally and on selections

General adjustments in levels and curves to enhance. A strong curves adjustment was used.

Vibrance layer increase 62 points

Brightness contrast layer with mask used to increase brightness on the tracks.

I wanted to add some sharply defined lines going into the distance. Along the track there is a sort of ledge area with a shadowed area below it. I made a selection of the shadow with the pen tool and used a saturation layer to sharply bring down the brightness of this area. Then another selection was made of the ledge and a colour balance adjustment layer used to bring up blues in this area.

The minus 2EV image was copied as a new layer and used to bring down the intensity of the light streak.

Crop tool used for composition and to remove the wiper blade.

Clone tool used for tidy up.

Duplicate layer with mask to apply extra sharpening and contrast (clarity effect) with 43 amount and 43 radius to the picture except the highlights.

BEFORE AND AFTER

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

Original

DLR Warp Speed OriginalDLR Warp Speed original

Final Image

DLR Warp Speed FinalDLR Warp Speed Final

Edwin Jones