The reason I ended up with the image that I showed you yesterday was because I wanted to get the image that I am showing you today.
Above this is the railway line and while you are standing under here, many trains go over the top of you. It is part of the city loop and gets many trains on it every day. The pylons that hold it up have to be strong, and there are a lot of them. You can walk underneath it, to quite a way. It is very sheltered under here, and, because of the way it was built, you know it has been here for as long as there has been trains going overhead.
This area also runs beside the river, and because it does, there are usually lots of people here. I had trouble getting an image with no one in it, and to tell you the 
truth I didn’t achieve it. I know looking at the image above, you can’t see anyone in it, but there were a couple of people. Let me show you the original. That’s it on the right.
This image is one of the bracketed shots that I took. I took a series of five and this was the second one. If you look closely at it you can see the person very obviously down the walkway. The white thing in the middle is a bus going under the overpass. So I had a bit work to do first, I had to get rid of those tell tale signs of human activity. I can’t have an image about an empty city with people going about their daily lives in it.
I used Photoshop to do this and used the content aware tool. What an amazing tool. I love it, and it has now become a very important tool in my toolbox. It has helped me to love photography again.
As I already said, the original image is part of a series of bracketed shots, and I don’t know if I need to say that I did a HDR with those images, and then the image was processed with camera raw. This is where I start most of my images.
When I go out taking photos one of the things I’ve started doing, well after I load all the images onto my computer is process the ones that I are going to be HDRs in Photomatix. I do one after another, and I get a stockpile of images. Then when it is time to work out what image I am going to show you and to work on, I go into the bridge in Photoshop and start looking and the one that appeals to me most that day, is the one I use.
I haven’t talked alot about what I have actually done to this image today, but I hope you don’t mind, I hope it helps to understand some of the early processes.
That is enough from me today.
Love these city views, a window to a world far away.
I guess like all cities there are beautiful parts, you just have to find them. I love this part, good that you like the images. Thanks John.
well done
Thank you.
Love the conversion on this one. Gives it an incredible atmosphere and a sense of age.
Thank you, it is great to hear that people like what I am doing, or one of the images that I have done anyway.
Amazing place Leanne !!! Wish I had a place like this here where I live :/ Well done!!!
I am sure you have something, maybe not the same, but I think you must have something similar, under a freeway, or under another sort of bridge. Thanks again and good luck.
Wow I love it!
That is so good, thank you.
Fantatstic. Wonderful images. I’ve never been there but I know aroundabouts where you were. Most importantly, if I need people erased can I send them to you? Melbourne has quite a reputation for that
It isn’t one of those places that you just go to. I have to admit, I had driven under it, but I only walked under it for the first time in January this year. Haha, I love that, erasing people, mmm, I could be your person, me and the content aware button.
Thnx – I liked gardenfreshtomatoes’ comment – I too have used scissors on ex-husbands! Just the photos, mind you
I am laughing to myself here. That was so funny how you wrote it. Thanks
I’m impressed with how you did this and the explanation is an education for people like me (a newbie) thank you for imparting your knowledge and understanding on how these things work, thank you….
You are very welcome, it is great to share knowledge. It helps me to understand what I am doing as well. I also find the blog becomes a good record of what I have done as well. Thanks for the visit and taking the time to comment.
The picture of the hallways are perfect! I hope someday I could take photos like you do
Taking the photos isn’t too hard, the processing I do, a little harder. It has taken me many tutorials and reading to understand what to do, and I still think I have a lot to learn. Thank you for your comments, I really appreciate your input.
Can you give me some links regarding the processing you are doing ? Thank you.
That’s a tough one, I don’t really know any specific tutorials, the thing that helped me a lot was a magazine that we get here in Australia called Better Photography. http://www.betterphotography.com/ that is the link to the website. You can be a online subscriber, Peter Eastway, the editor is a guru with Photoshop. I have learned so much from him.
Another place is Stuck in Customs, I believe they have some good tutorials as well. I haven’t really done them myself, but I have heard other people have and got a lot out of them.
Of course, there is always me, I don’t mind answering questions, or helping out if I can.
Hope that all helps.
I love it! You captured the atmosphere perfectly.
If I ever figure out how to take people out of photos, I’ve got months of erasing my ex-husband to keep me busy…
Hahaha, that is so funny, then you could use the content aware instead of the scissors. I love it. Thank you Marie, I can always count on you to make me laugh.
Beautifully dark and eerie…
It all sounds very complicated to me, but well done!
That is the atmosphere I was going for.
The processing is a bit, but if you have the time so worth it. Thanks Zelmare.
Nice shot, and great post processing. Thanks for taking through the steps you take to make these awesome images.
Thank you, though, I cheated a bit today, I only talked about the start of it, I guess we all have to start somewhere. I thought it was important to talk about that as well, I do tend to skip over it. Thanks again.
Very very nice! And echoing the above comments; thank you for allowing us to see a glimpse into the work you do to capture the end results!! Lovely.
It is strange that that seems to be the thing that people like, I use my blog like a visual diary, albeit a public one. It is nice to know that I am helping people, I like that. It makes me try harder. So thank you for coming and looking and commenting. It is appreciated.
keep posting, and I’ll keep visiting!
Hi Leanne,
Great perspective and I really like the way your postprocessing gives that dark empty city feel. In this end-result to be honest I think the further dark parts look a bit too fuzzy/ cartoonish for my taste. Thanks for sharing your process and great pictures though…
Greetings,
Ron
Hey Ron, perfectly fine if you don’t like it all, that is par for the course, is that the saying, that not everyone is going to like everything I do. Thanks for you comments though, I do appreciate them, and will consider what you said.
I know pretty much exactly where you took this – funny that the underside of a bridge could be so familiar. i like the shot very much.
Thanks Liz, I think it is a forgotten part of Melbourne. I love it. Will have to spend more time under it I think.
I really like this one Leanne; you’ve surpassed yourself. Beautifully done. I find Photoshop a little overwhelming to be honest so I steer clear of it unless I’m really keen to do something – meaning of course I usually have to find a tutorial on YouTube to provide some pointers. Post processing is such an art that despite accumulating hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours in front of the keyboard I still feel like a neophyte. Now, don’t get me started on asset management…
Thank you, I was really happy with this image as well.
I know exactly what you mean about PS, up until a little over a year ago, I was the same. I could never remember how to do things after being shown. I was frustrated, then I decided I just had to learn, and I made the decision to just do it. I spent many hours reading and trying stuff. I feel quite comfortable with it now, but I know I still have a lot to learn.
At the risk of sounding unintelligent (and I guess I could look it up somewhere), what do you mean by “bracketed” shots? I have a guess, but I am not sure. And I love the finished product… you are doing these darker/moody images which I find very appealing in an artistic way.
Bracketed shots are done where you take a number of images of the same subject, but you change the exposure for each shot. I used to do on my very old film camera, I would take a photo at the right exposure, then change the aperture up one, and then down one stop from the correct exposure, so I got one image that was underexposed, one image correctly exposed and one image overexposed. Now you can set your camera up to do it, and the camera does all that for you. I hope I have written that so you can see what it is. I don’t always explain things well.
Thanks for the lovely things you said about the image, I can never tire of hearing things like that.
Oh, I had no idea that’s what it meant. I actually thought maybe it meant they were in a natural frame (like the building structure) or something. Thanks for letting me know!
amazing shot – love the not-over-the-top HDR
Thank you, I like my HDR’s that way as well.
Very nicely done. I like that you went light on the HDR processing, and it doesn’t scream “HDR!” to me. No crazy colors, no halos, etc. Two thumbs up from me!
I like those two thumbs up thank you. I feel the same way as you do. For me HDR is no more than a starting point. Thanks for your comments.
Thanks for sharing such an awesome work!
No, thank you for coming by and taking a look and then leaving a wonderful comment. I really appreciate that.
Amazing photo! I love your work, Leanne!!!
Thank you, wonderful to hear that enjoy the work, thanks for coming by and leaving your thoughts.
A nicely done HDR image, and one of the best I’ve seen. I haven’t quite mastered the process yet.
Thank you Daniela, such high praise. It takes a while to master them and to fully understand what you are doing. I feel I am only just starting to understand myself. Good luck with yours.
Love the atmosphere – the colors – and the textures in the final shot!! Awesome and rich looking!! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for coming by my blog and taking a look. I am glad you like the image, the processes are coming along. I really appreciate the comment, thanks.
Beautiful, Leanne…I love the richness of color you added…very nice.
Thanks Scott, it is lovely working on these, I am enjoying them so much.
You’re welcome…your enjoyment shows “through” in your posts.
wonderful PP
Thank you very much.
now I gotta go try out some stuff on Photoshop – wonder if Elements has any good features like you used here?? Love this!!
It does, give it a shot. Let me know how you go.
been playing with filters all morning, getting the last leg of our last journey ready. what fun!! why didn’t I try this before!!!
Gorgeous photo, even prior to it’s ‘shopping. The end result was seamless.
I read your post a few days back about HDR and the suggestion about backing off the saturation levels after using it-incredibly helpful.
You’ve got a great blog and a marvelous eye for photography. Thanks for posting so much informative and visually stunning work.
Thanks Dave, I really like the way you have descibed the work I did on the image.
Glad you got something useful from my blog, that is great news.
Thanks again, you can comment again, haha,
Leanne
Thanks for visiting my blog. Your post processing is excellent. I admire your effort. I’ll enjoy following your work. All the best.
Thank you Victor. It was a pleasure visiting your blog. I hope you enjoy my blog.
almost painting esque. I love it
It is great to hear what people see or feel about an image. Thank you James.
This is brilliant! 100% proof Leanne Cole. Subtle and disorientating – I love the palette you’ve used.
Thank you Richard. Wow, great to hear you really like this one. I think it is by the most the popular one I have done so far, maybe I should enter it in a competition.
You make everything look so beautiful
I don’t know about that, but I am enjoying what I am doing to them. Thanks again. You are going to get a heap of notifications where I am just saying, thank you Amanda, thank you Amanda, I hope you don’t mind.
HAHAHA No of course not! Glad I don’t bother you with so many comments lol