The desert has amazing powers of preservation!
Joshua Tree National Park wasn’t always a park, there used to be a few ore processing mills here in the 30’s. One of those is the Wall Street Mill which is protected as a historic site because of it’s mechanical uniqueness. The machinery is still intact.
Near the mill you can also find a few abandoned cars – antiques left over from the mining era.
It’s amazing that these cars are probably 85 years old and here they sit with a bit of rust, a few pieces missing, and some very worn out tires!
I decided to try some fun photo processing techniques on this one.
Please click the image to view a larger version.
Here are the steps I used to make this image:
- When I visited this location it was the middle of the afternoon in some pretty bright light, so I decided to make three exposures (one for the highlights, one for the mid-tones, and one for the shadows) and combine them into an HDR image to even out the exposure.
- After I made the HDR image, everything was pretty flat so I wanted to add some colour, contrast and detail to the car to make it pop. I used one of my favourite plugins, Topaz Adjust, to do this. Topaz Adjust has lots of presets you can use to do this kind of thing.
- I didn’t like the way the sky and some of the trees looked in HDR, so I brought one of the original exposures into photoshop and blended it with the HDR image. This way the sky and the trees look more natural because they are not HDR nor do they have the Topaz Adjust effect applied to them. This is how the image looked after this step:
- I decided to try something fun and used the Topaz Simplify plugin to make a painterly effect on the image.
Processing is fun and every once in awhile I like to try something new to see what kind of effects I can create.
By the way, Topaz Labs is having a sale on the Topaz Simplify Plugin for the next couple of weeks. You can get it for 50% off bringing the price down to just $20!! They also have a trial version so you can try it out before you buy.
Of course, Topaz Adjust is one of my favourite plugins, and it has some painterly effect presets as well. It just depends on what you want, so I recommend trying them out first.
Love your Joshua Tree photos! I’ve been to Joshua Tree a couple of times, but I’ve not been to the Wall Street Mill, but I must go there. Have you been to Bodie, CA? If you like old cars and buildings in the desert, you’ll love Bodie!
Yes, I loved Bodie! Unfortunately I didn’t realize that it closes and I went intending on shooting twilight so I ended up with about half an hour of shooting time before it closed. Next time I’ll arrive earlier. The Wall Street Mill in Joshua Tree is pretty interesting, I think you would enjoy it.
Wonderful rendition Anne. Love old cars and rust and stuff like that.
Old cars make great photo subjects! Thanks for your comments Joe.
Anne:
JTNP is one of my favorite places. I love the Topaz Simplify software. I have been trying to find a good photo conversion to the impressionistic style and Simplify is the best I have found so far with out spending a lot of time in the process. Keep us all posted on your latest travels. Travel on.
Rudy
Hi Rudy, I’m glad you are enjoying Simplify too. It’s fun to play with when you want that painterly effect. Thanks for your visit and comments.
Thanks I enjoyed reading your artical Beautifull picture
Glad you enjoyed it Leroi.
Very cool image-thanks for sharing Anne
Thanks Doug!
A superbly crafted image. This old car looks more like a work of art than a clapped old car.
That’s exactly what I thought when I saw it 😉 Thanks for your visit and comments Andy.
That is so cool! I’d love to know how to do this.
Topaz Simplify! Glad you like it Kathy.
I love this piece.
Will the topaz-adjust work with adobe elements 11? Or just photoshop or lightroom?
It should work with AE11. I’ve used it with AE8 & AE12.
Hi Carole, yes, it works with photoshop elements too. In fact I am using it with elements. Glad you enjoyed it!
I like a sleeping face behind the car..
Ha, I never noticed that 🙂 Thanks Kaz.
That old car just seems to get better with age. I love your processing on this one Anne!
Thank you very much Russ, I think this car probably has been getting better with age! 🙂
I was wrong about Topaz Clean. Simplify, of course! Well done HDR!
Thanks very much Captain!
Just love this image Anne. I like the more impressionistic feel of the 1st image, but overall the 2nd image wins for me, due to the extra detail. It shows that photography doesn’t just have to be limited to recording the scene in front of you, but that it can become a work of art too!
Thanks Jennifer. In my opinion, photographs should be works of art unless you doing photojournalism (or just taking snapshots). I appreciate your visit and comments.
I really like the second one the best. The first is cool too, it looks more like a painting than a photo actually.
That’s pretty much what Topaz Simplify does, makes a photo look like a painting. I think it’s pretty fun to use sometimes. Thanks for your comments Devlin!
I love the photo and I love the technique you used to process. Thanks for helpful step-by-step. 🙂
You are welcome Mary, glad you found it helpful.