Templot Club Archive 2007-2020                             

topic: 3638Foreground darkening
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posted: 17 Apr 2020 20:58

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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When taking layout photos it is often difficult to avoid over-exposed, bleached out foreground areas. With lamps very close, getting enough light on the whole subject inevitably means that some areas are going to get too much.
 
So in a break from Templot I have had a dabble at some graphics programming.

I've created a Windows utility program to progressively darken the lower part of an image. I'm sure that can be done in programs such as Photoshop and Affinity, but I thought a dedicated utility might be easier to use. It has worked out quite well, or at least I think so, and I can tweak it further in the light (!) of experience. :)

I then added, as you do, further bells and a whistle or two to adjust the colour intensity at the same time, and to allow lightening as well as darkening.

If you follow the Stoke Courtenay layout topic on RMweb you may have seen my comments about this on there. Here are a couple of before and after shots to show what's possible.

John's original photo with the foreground tracks rather bleached out:

2_171525_250000000.jpg2_171525_250000000.jpg


And below with some foreground darkening, which helps to focus attention on the main subject.

By fiddling about with the controls I also added a patch of sunlight catching the ground disc and the locomotive front buffers. Probably a bit overdone:

2_171525_250000001.jpg2_171525_250000001.jpg


Here's a program screenshot. No file dialogs, the source image is copied and pasted from any graphics editor, and then copied and pasted back when done. If you don't have a graphics editor, you could open files, copy, paste, and save via the picture shapes dialog in Templot.

Being made of Meccano, it's quite slow. Large images from a digital camera or high-end mobile might be better resized smaller first.

2_171525_260000002.jpg2_171525_260000002.jpg


The program can be downloaded from the link below if anyone would like to try it. You will need to jump through the usual Windows security hoops to run it:

In Windows 10 you may see something like this:

  2_210706_140000000.png2_210706_140000000.png

Click the More info link. You should then see something like this:

  2_210706_140000001.png2_210706_140000001.png

Click the Run anyway button. It's safe to run.

No installation needed, just download and run it. Comments and feedback welcome, as usual.

I will write some notes about using it after I have had a boiled egg.

cheers,

Martin.
Attachment: attach_3009_3638_image_darkener.exe     101

posted: 18 Apr 2020 12:29

from:

Judi R
 
Sutton-on-Sea - United Kingdom

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Thanks for that Martin, it works as advertised! After running it to check how well it worked I closed it and then wondered where on my system it was. I found it in my downloads folder (of course) so I've moved it to my Templot_Dev folder and created myself a shortcut. Love the blue hat icon!

Judi R

posted: 18 Apr 2020 20:13

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Thanks Judi.

Two boiled eggs notwithstanding, I have so far failed to write any detailed notes. :?

I have however made a bit of video as a guide to using the program:

 http://flashbackconnect.com/Default.aspx?id=aXCjica0yZIHqSoVfgEC5A2

cheers,

Martin.



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