Pollution

BMW Kurt

David_S85

I love industrial photography! Good subject. Suggestion: this image could benefit from raising the gamma and stretching the histogram a bit plus some added contrast.

BMW Kurt

@David_S85 said:
I love industrial photography! Good subject. Suggestion: this image could benefit from raising the gamma and stretching the histogram a bit plus some added contrast.

Thanks! I am still learning how to do black and white digital conversions (I still shoot a lot of B&W film). I am looking for ideas to help make the image "pop" a little.

Richard

David's advice is good. If you look at the histogram of the image, there's nothing at all above 188 on the gray scale. That means you have no real whites in the image, and the contrast is compressed into a narrower range than necessary. You can use a simple curve adjustment to lower the white point first, then pull the shadows down a bit to further increase the contrast. If you want to push it even farther, you could duplicate the curve layer and put the new one into one of the overlay blending modes (soft light looks pretty good here), then adjust the opacity to taste.

BMW Kurt

Stretched out histogram.

Using NIK Sinister HDR filter in Photoshop

I want the shot to have a sort of ominous feeling to it.

Thanks David and Richard for your advice. I have a thick skin. I just retired and I am just now trying to learn Photoshop and Light Room in a serious manner.

David_S85

The re-edited two are better. I prefer the first. In the second, the whites are very badly blown out. Doesn't look like a good filter to use in this case, or maybe the settings went too far.