just a wash and wax before the storm (mood pics)

[97 Supra]

Making progress on the car slowly but surely. It was getting stormy out so as the mist came down before the storm I washed and waxed the car real quick to grab some point-and-shoot shots just to play with the grim lighting.

the car isn't much to look at as its one in a million but I figured I'd share the photos anyway just for the sake of photography. Some photo enhancements obviously here and there to make them more dramatic.

Cloudy days may have bad lighting, but they provide an atmosphere you just cant easily fake in photoshop.









Just having some fun on a dark day!

- Brett

[CieraSL]

Re: just a wash and wax before the storm (mood pics)

For some reason this song was playing in my head as I was looking at these pictures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=braiIuaM41M

Hmmm, dark pictures equal a dark theme, yes?

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: just a wash and wax before the storm (mood pics)

Neat pics.

[Markus Kleis]

Re: just a wash and wax before the storm (mood pics)

Cool picture Brett.

May I ask what you did in terms of camera settings and/or touch-up on the first 2 pictures? I would love to get some photos like that of my car.

[Underdawg736]

Re: just a wash and wax before the storm (mood pics)

Nice picks of a DD! It's like the calm before the storm.

[97 Supra]

Re: just a wash and wax before the storm (mood pics)

Cool picture Brett.

May I ask what you did in terms of camera settings and/or touch-up on the first 2 pictures? I would love to get some photos like that of my car.

I used a regular point and shoot casio exilim, didn't set the camera or anything just used photoshop effects.

this was in photoshop 7, but im sure its similar for all of them.

1.) Select vehicle, select inverse (so you now have the background selected) then desaturate background 90-100%
2.) Filter --> Render --> lighting effects --> Omni --> Choose your settings and focal point, I chose the front wheel, or headlight as the focal point (center of light omni)
3.) Filter --> Sharpen --> Sharpen, or Unsharpen-mask and choose settings for sharper image
4.) Select clouds only with selection tool --> Using the burn tool, set it on burn midtones about 30% with a 200 size brush --> burn over clouds quickly, so you don't leave circle marks until desired cloud cover is achieved (it must be cloudy in the pic to begin with obviously.)
5.) While clouds remain selected, choose your blur tool and set it low, like 25% then blur the clouds if they need to be blurred (mine did because I raised the sharpness of the whole pic so the clouds looked grainy)
6.) hold down CTRL key, and click on the layer for the photo - this will highlight the entire photo. Go to Select --> Modify --> Border --> set your pixel amount, I used 11 pixel border --> hit ok, then brett backspace, or delete key to erase the border.
7.) Make a new layer, color it all black, drag it below the photo layer and now you have your border.

At the end if you want to enhance the colors or feel of the photo you can always edit the hue & saturation, or brightness & contrast to get the desired color and effect.

Hope that helps!

Thank you, to the rest of you for the kind words!

[Sal329]

Re: just a wash and wax before the storm (mood pics)

Great pics

[Markus Kleis]

Re: just a wash and wax before the storm (mood pics)

Wow, thanks for the write-up Supra! I will give that a shot

[christian6984]

Re: just a wash and wax before the storm (mood pics)

nice work, looks a great car, we never got the 3dr chrysler neon in the uk.

[97 Supra]

Re: just a wash and wax before the storm (mood pics)

it's no hatch, it has a trunk and 2 doors but thank you