photography

Turbo Saved—at Churchville.

No, really!

I exposed this black & white negative in March 1988. This was the trailing view of Amtrak’s Sunday Niagara Rainbow racing along the Waterlevel Route at Churchville, New York.

I’ve always like the ‘cotton candy sky’ effect and I intentionally underexposed the photo to better capture the clouds with the streamlined train in silhouette.

Unfortunately, I processed the 120-sized film using stainless tanks and reels, which were relatively cold which resulted in uneven processing, especially toward the sides of the image.

I scanned the photo many years ago, but last night spent about ten minutes in Lightroom making a series of digital masks to even out the exposure and contrast to largely correct of the processing error.

I’ve included the unaltered scan, several of the work windows showing the masks (in purple), and then my final images.

The old Amtrak Turboliners are all gone, but I have many photos of these unusual trains on the move.

This is the RAW unaltered scan. Notice that the sides are lighter (and more contrasty) than the center of the photo.
Lightroom work window showing the first of five masks applied to improve the image. This is a linear gradation .
This the fifth mask, a radial gradation aimed at lightening a portion of the sky.
This isn’t perfect, but most of the processing defects have been addressed. Plus I improved contrast and lightened the shadows.
This was my final edit; I added in a slight vignette which makes for a more natural looking image. The effect is subtle, but effective.

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!