Red Engine

Because of the great success of the movie Unstoppable I thought I might get a little practice in myself because I'm thinking squeal. So I went down to my favorite local train store, Merri-Seven Trains & Hobbies, in Livonia MI to get a little stick time...

Good Tuesday everyone.

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Here is the link to the movie's trailer, Unstoppable

Caution Tech Stuff:

Stopped in and shot this engine sitting on a bunch of track parts as an HDR. The background was a busy display case full of other train hardware. After processing the HDR I knocked the train out from its background. While I was at the store I also took a shot of some artificial trees and used them for my background.

Now we have our train and tracks removed from the background and looking pretty good mixed in with the trees. I setup and shot myself posing as you see. After adjusting my size I carefully erased some of myself so it looks like I'm in the window. I added a little shadow to my arm and body.

After I did some sharpening to the train I flattened the whole image. I then made a copy of the flattened image and blurred it to about 10 pixels. Using the soft light blend mode in the layers pallet I mixed back about 40% of the blur layer which softens and riches up the color. It also lightly glows the trees. I'm pretty happy with this one. I hope I get to try out for the squeal. Enjoy...