River, bridge, rocks and stuff

[eTraxx]

While waiting for my 3d printed bridge shoes I propped my kitbashed On30 bridge in place and played with the color balance on my Nikon D3000. Getting closer .. but still too red. I need a photo guy stand behind me and thump me on the head and say .. "YOU DUMMY" .. and then tell me how to do it correcltly in a way that it gets through to my little brain .. :/

[darrylhuffman]

Come over to my house and I will show you how to do it.

Actually, I have had several Nikon digital cameras and found all of them to provide a "cold" look when I view them on my computer.

Are you trying to do battle using the Nikon software for photo editing?

I personally use PhotoDeluxe 2.0 which is a 10 year old simplified version of PhotoShop and find it works great and is easy.

Available on EBay for about $10 to $15 whenever I get another copy for a friend.

That way I can just call them and say Do this and Do that.

Your scene looks fine to me anyway.

I love dark water rather than bright blue or green.

[darrylhuffman]

You may want to paint a simple background scene in your canyon while waiting.

See attached photo of one of my old layouts with a similar scene.

[finescalerr]

Ed, sometimes you can't help it when a color is too strong; it's the camera's fault. Since the rest of the coloration looks fine, I'd simply select the rocks and desaturate the reds.

Also, while Darryl's scene looks fine, yours really needs no additional painted background. Many coastal areas look exactly like your scene.

Russ

[Junior]

Ed, great looking diorama there! If your´e done with all the white balance settings (I have the Nikon D5000) I´ll guess the last option would be to take it outdoors on a nice sunny day and try to find a spot where a natural background would work.

Anders

[darrylhuffman]

If you can't take your diorama outdoors for photos, then try to find the area in your editing program for enhancing the image and then look for the word HISTOGRAM.

Click on Histogram and you will be taken to a menu in which you can pick different colors, like red.

Slide the button for red back and forth and see how that affects your color of your rocks.

I hae no idea, of course, of which photo editing program you are using but almost all these days allow this type of adjustment.

[eTraxx]

It's not really a diorama as such but the end of my On30 module. I have two I'm working on for the National Narrow Gauge Convention in Hickory, NC later in the year. I was working on them and it came to me that I could mount them on the wall .. and I would get an instant shelf-layout. The nice thing about that is I can work them as a layout .. and later on tote the modules off for display. That's the plan at least.

The D3000 allows you to either use Auto White Balance using pre-selects .. Daylight, incandescent, various flourscents etc. .. or manually off of a white card for mixed lighting (which I have in the BR). Darryl's suggestion works (I have Paint Shop Pro .. both XI and X3. Shrug. I sill like the older version) .. used the Histogram function to de-saturate the red a bit like Russ suggested.

The intention is to be part of my On30 group with other modules when operating so it has very little operational possobilities by itself. When a 'stand along' (as it is on the wall) it's pretty much a big diorama .. which is fine with me since I like that part of the hobby.

Here it is .. the part with the black fascia is the two - 2'x4' modules. The part on the left is just a bit added on so I can have some structures

[chester]

Ed, I use image software called Graphic Converter. Basically Photoshop without all the bells and whistles.
I dropped the red contrast by 20% and bumped the red hue up by 2% to give me this difference compared to your original. Do you have two different kinds of lighting up behind the valence? Oh and by the way the scene looks terrific, like the water particularly.

[eTraxx]

Chester. Excellent. That was what I was trying to get to .. the way it actually looks. I looked .. and darn .. GraphicConverter is for the Mac. Double darn. (is that the one you were talking about?). In any case .. took notes .. see if I can replicate

The lighting. Behind the valence is all Flourescent tube .. Sylvania "Daylight Deluxe" which has a Color Temperature of 6000K

The lighting in the room .. the light that is acting as "fill light" (I think) is from some 26 watt CFL Lowes brand that I have long since forgot what temperature they are .. and probably need to find a replacement that's closer to that in  the tubes in the valence (if possible at all). I'm guessing that they are "daylight" so about 3400K.

Thanks for the positive comment. I'm having fun .. this is still early in the process. Expect vegetation later on.

[Bexley]

Ooh, multiple types of light always make things tricksy. That would be my first guess.

[okiecrip]

ed always does excellent work on what ever he is doing. gives me lots of insperation no if he could teach to spell but old dogs have memory problems.

[pwranta193]

Ed,
That reminds me of a line I once read somewhere about "behind every good writer is an editor with a Louisville Slugger to crack him in the head and say 'it's done'".

Like what you go going so far... it has an especially arid feel to it... once again, I like how you've made your concrete look like, well, concrete.  Something I still have to do more experimentation with.  Dig the shelf idea, BTW.  Sorry I can't help with picture woes, but enjoy seeing the project.

Paul

[JohnP]

Ed, that's nice modeling. The modules look like they would display well.

One thing you could do is buy a Kodak Q-60 reference print. Take a picture of it outside in the sun using standard camera settings. Then take a picture of it inside under your module lights with the same camera settings. Bring up each photo side-by-side in your photo editing software. Then adjust the sliders and curves on the inside picture until it matches the outside one. Write down the settings or use whatever feature you have that can save and then apply settings. So now if you take your inside photos using the standard outside settings on the camera, the photo software will adjust them with just a few clicks.

For more precision you can use the RGB measurement on the software (if present) to compare the color patches.

You also could use a colorful print like a calendar photo as your reference photo.

John

[eTraxx]

Little update ..

End of day .. added a little vegetation. That rock wall thing still bugs me. Was supposed to texture the stones etc. Gotta fix that .. meh .. maybe tomorrow .. tonight .. got a cold beer.

[artizen]

Nice.