West Somerset Railway III: A cavalcade of BR Standards

Not that into trains - though funnily enough have been taking quite a few shots of them here of late - but I do like this set, Andrew (apart from the last one, which is just okay). And I'm with the majority in liking Waiting for the road best.

Andrew,

The only iron(y) is the stuff of your images - engines and rails. Top shots!

'Sometimes I feel I still have my hand on the throttle...I hear the blow of the steam and the hiss of the Westinghouse...the whistles of the engines are music to me still' Ben Chifley 1885-1951

Thanks everyone.

You're all really kind and encouraging. It's easy to get carried away with this kind of thing... these old monsters are so full of potential but interestingly it's the ones with people (the right people in the right clothes) that viewers are most drawn to.

I took a short series in the engine/coach works shed at Williton which is a bit different, so I may sort some out and post them later.

Again grateful thanks,

Andrew

PGW
The Duke of Gloucester in colour (sort of) against the light and dark green so... and don't the dreaded hi-vis jackets on the level-crossing show up!

Regards,

Andrew
[IMG]http://i927.photobucket.com/albums/ad116/ADC3440/Pictures011z.jpg[/IMG]

What can I say? Another wonderful set. How can we possibly become bored?

Stephen

Thank you Stephen. Glad you like them.

A.

Easy reach for you, Gareth. I know you've visited Minehead: that's the terminus of the West Somerset railway. All the intermediate stations are good for shots, particularly Blue Anchor and Williton. Plus, of course, there are open views between stations.

Come on over with some of that lovely gear of yours and fill your boots!

Best wishes,

Andrew

Steam trains look so powerful and have a bueaty that no modern locomotive can ever have. Love the photos Andrew.

Thanks Elva, you're right...they giants of steam with all the reflections and atmosphere make the shot themselves!

regards,

Andrew

OK,

I said to andrew I fancied tweaking a couple of these shots and heres the result

Firstly twaeked to reduce the brightness of the prefab / corrigated steal building
[IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb113/pnjmcc/bigtrainburnt.jpg[/IMG]

Secondly 'waiting for the road' (in my opinion) was crying out for a nostalgic tweak to look olde world
[IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb113/pnjmcc/trainmanolde.jpg[/IMG]

I hope you like them
Regards
PaulM

I like the set as whole Andrew and like many of the others who have commented my favourite is 'waiting for the road', but the original version not the one converted to period style. I prefer the Duke of Gloucester in its second form.
david

Thanks David, So glad you enjoyed them...that's what it's all about after all!

Huge thanks to you Paul for taking the time to process these. It's most appreciated.

Andrew

Hi Gareth,

You need a "sheet" of dirtied, flyspotted, creased paper which you can make yourself, photograph or scan, then simply add this as a layer beneath your sepia or bw original.

A vignette and slight edge blur helps produce the effect of a cheap old lens (actually all of mine are cheap old lenses...don't know why I bother!)

I have carried some new/old prints about in my pocket to further age them and scuffed the edges with a blunt knife. People find it hard to tell the difference.

It's also fun to do the same thing with a faded colour shot a la 1960s.

Have a go!

Best wishes,

Andrew

Hi Gareth,

I did mine in photoshop CS3 and below is the steps I used.
My dirty sratchy layer was a picture of an old cast concrete wall with marks, scratches and imperfections that I liked the look of.

In photoshop it goes some thing like this

1) Image>Adjust>Black and White and move the sliders around until you like the look

2)Filter>Distort>Lens Correction and use the vignette and midpoint slider until you get something that you like the look of

3) Image>Adjust>Photo Filter and pick the sepia tone and again set the strength to something you like the look of.

4) create a new layer at the top (either by Layer>New Layer or the new layer Icon in the bottom pf the layers pallet)

5) Open up the texture you want to use in a new window and then select it all and copy it (Ctrl A for select all and Ctrl C for copy) then switch back to your main image and paste (Ctrl V) it in to the new top layer you created in step 4

6) Now you need to change the blend mode of your new texture layer. There is a box directly below the the tab for the layers pallet and in it is usually the word 'Normal' change this to one you like the look of. I normally use either 'Screen', 'Multiply' or 'Overlay'

7) As a final thing you can adjust the opacity of this top layer to increase and decrease the strength of the effect until you get some thing you like the look of.

Dont forget to preserve the orignal image by either saving the image under a different file name working on a duplicate layer (Layer>Duplicate layer) of the image and hiding the original or by doing each of the above on seperate adjustment layers (Layers>New Adjustment Layer)

I apologise if the above is too basic but I was trying to keep it as simple as possible

Hope this helps

Regards
PaulM