Greenville Photo of the Day

[Beowulf]

^ That's amazing! Looks exactly like a scale train set. The building with the washed out wording, the light post, the placement of trees, the shade of gray of the bridge and the people on the deck. Incredible photo Beowulf! You should do a whole series of these (and sell them)!

Oh, I've got no problem with selling them, as long as RT lets me still his best shots

[dimebag1980]

I figure a few tricks with Photoshop is a heck of a lot cheaper and less time consuming than setting up a model railroad.

Wow. I love those miniature-looking photos.

I wish I knew how to do that in Photoshop. I'm a Photoshop fan and I use it all the time, but never attempted anything like that.

[Beowulf]

It's actually quite simple. I've gotten where I can churn one out in just a couple of minutes. It involves blurring selective portions of the image to fake a narrow depth of field, then blowing out the color curves to give a "fake" appearance to the textures. After that, you crank up the color saturation to make it look plastic.

Christopher Phinn has created an excellent tutorial, and there are also several Flickr groups devoted to the technique.

[Beowulf]

One more thing - choice of photo is very important. Images taken in strong lighting work well. The best "model effect" is achieved from shots taken from higher ground looking down. If you get the sky in the shot, it tends to lessen the effect.

[goodbye]

I posted these in the RiverPlace thread, but think they deserve to be here as well, for no reason but the subject itself.

Part of the fountain has been on most of the day!

[gs3]

One more thing - choice of photo is very important. Images taken in strong lighting work well. The best "model effect" is achieved from shots taken from higher ground looking down. If you get the sky in the shot, it tends to lessen the effect.

I've been thinking about this all day....really neat. The photo choice of subject does seem very critical.....I looked at the flickr photos for the link you posted, and choice of subject seemed to make a huge difference in the miniature look. The photo you did above of Falls Park toward West End, has everything I'd put in a miniature......the building with the old faded sign painted on the brick, the lightpost, bridge, the different levels of ground, etc. Greenville's architecture seems pretty perfect for this effect. How would photos from the circus and amusement parks work? I went to "Miniature World" this past year when I was visiting Victoria (I love this stuff).

Here is a photo of the State Fair at Miniature World through the window. Also below is a photo of a rollercoaster at Busch Gardens.....would it work for this kind of miniaturization?

Want to start a thread about this miniaturization? Really, the freshest, most fun subject I've seen on UP in quite some time.

Disclaimer: The below are not "Photos of the Day".

State Fair in Miniature World:

Would a photo like this work for this process?

[Beowulf]

Give it a shot, GSU, and see what you can do.

I do see a couple of potential problems, though. I think you would want the roller-coaster to be the focus of the shot. You're almost eye-level with it, and it's in the background. It might get blurred badly when you change the DOF. Also, that prominent red and yellow pavilion in the foreground might be hard to work around.

Still, you'll never know until you try. I'll be curious to see how it turns out.

I wonder how it would turn out to do a "fake miniature" of your real miniature!

BTW, I'm flying to London in a couple of weeks. I hope to get some good shots on the flight in and out, and to take some shots from the London Eye. I think these would be great for tilt-shift.

[gs3]

Give it a shot, GSU, and see what you can do.

I do see a couple of potential problems, though. I think you would want the roller-coaster to be the focus of the shot. You're almost eye-level with it, and it's in the background. It might get blurred badly when you change the DOF. Also, that prominent red and yellow pavilion in the foreground might be hard to work around.

Still, you'll never know until you try. I'll be curious to see how it turns out.

I wonder how it would turn out to do a "fake miniature" of your real miniature!

BTW, I'm flying to London in a couple of weeks. I hope to get some good shots on the flight in and out, and to take some shots from the London Eye. I think these would be great for tilt-shift.

Thanks for the pointers! I'm gonna give it a whirl.

Have a great London trip......shoot some red double deckers to miniaturize......

[Beowulf]

I'll try. We'll see how my fake miniatures compare with your real ones.

I like your idea of a Miniature Greenville thread. I think you could get some great shots from the parking garages and the Church Street Bridge, in addition to ones looking down from the Liberty Bridge.

One of the other pointers is that it's helpful to have a strong point of focus in your image. I think vehicles work very well because there are so many toy cars, etc. Just take a look at your London photo above and you'll see what I mean.

Carnival rides would be great subjects, if you can get them. A shot taken from the top of a Ferris Wheel would be excellent.

Here's a fake miniature of your model London. How redundant is that?

[gs3]

Your miniaturization of the miniature actually looks much better!

Thanks for the additional pointers!

[goodbye]

Here is my own version of this technique. I haven't actually read the tutorial linked above, so don;t expect perfection.

Edited June 30, 2006 by Skyliner

[RestedTraveler]

I figure a few tricks with Photoshop is a heck of a lot cheaper and less time consuming than setting up a model railroad.

Not to mention a lot cheaper than buying a tilt-shift lens.

I love this discussion, so please don't take this the wrong way, but this is exactly why we need a Coffee Shopt/Tea Room sub forum. We get off on tangents a lot.

[Greenville]

I second RT's remarks. We need a Greenville Bubble Tea Room subforum!

[Beowulf]

Here is my own version of this technique. I haven't actually read the tutorial linked above, so don;t expect perfection.

Excellent first attempt. Yours looks much better than lots I've seen on Flickr.

Camelot!

Camelot!

Camelot!

(It's only a model.)

[dimebag1980]

One more thing - choice of photo is very important. Images taken in strong lighting work well. The best "model effect" is achieved from shots taken from higher ground looking down. If you get the sky in the shot, it tends to lessen the effect.

You mean like this? I think this is decent for my first miniature...

The original photo had a bit of a 'miniature' feel to it already so I tried to enhance it. Sorry this isn't a photo from Greenville...

(click attachment thumbnail)

fake miniature...

original...

[RestedTraveler]

Tuesday, 04-JUL-2006:

Part of the sellout crowd of 6,737 crazed Greenville Drive fans getting ready to release their Rocket Balloons after singing "Take Me out to the Ball Game" during the seventh inning stretch.

All I could think of at the moment was that scene from "Look Who's Talking" where you hear Bruce Willis' voice exclaim, "This way guys! It's over here!"

[Beowulf]

That's hilarious!

...the humor of unintended consequences.

[RestedTraveler]

Wednesday, 05-JUL-2006:

[goodbye]

WOW! Great vantage-point, RT! I was over in from of the Peace Center Amphitheatre stage, enjoying the music as I watched the fireworks come up over the RiverPlace Office building. It created another unique angle as the tails flew up vertically from the point of the roof, and the bursts were easily visible. That concert by the GSO (well less than half of the regulars, and several fill-ins) was simply incredible! The crowd covered every inch that was visible to the stage. It was such a tremendous tribute to both our nation and the city of Greenville.

[NYTransplant]

WOW! Great vantage-point, RT! I was over in from of the Peace Center Amphitheatre stage, enjoying the music as I watched the fireworks come up over the RiverPlace Office building. It created another unique angle as the tails flew up vertically from the point of the roof, and the bursts were easily visible. That concert by the GSO (well less than half of the regulars, and several fill-ins) was simply incredible! The crowd covered every inch that was visible to the stage. It was such a tremendous tribute to both our nation and the city of Greenville.

I was there as well Skyliner. Since we were sitting under a bunch of trees, we took off toward the end of the concert and went in search of a vantage point for fireworks. We ended up out on Camperdown.

RT, were you on the Swamp Rabbit bridge?

[RestedTraveler]

Awesome shot, NYT! That's just beautiful! You had an excellent vantage point, considering the reflection.

In retrospect, I think f/8 with 1-2 second exposure would have been the way to go. I was using f/18 with 10 second exposure because I wanted to capture that streaking effect of the tail, but it was a bit too much exposure overall. I'll remember this next year.

We were sitting on the river bank just off of the rocks out from the Bowater Garage.

P.S. That'd be an excellent one for the Southern PotD, too.

[goodbye]

WOW, beautiful shot, NYT! That is an angle I would never have thought of, but it gives a very unique perspective with the reflection on the glass. Awesome exposure! You ought to consider posting that one in the July 4th thread in the South forum as well.

[NYTransplant]

Thanks guys, I'll post in the other forums too.

RT, I have a bunch of shots with too long of an exposure also. Finally, towards the end of the fireworks, I set the shutter to a faster speed and ended up with a few good ones. Live and Learn.

[scman473]

Bump.

[RestedTraveler]

Sorry, but I'm out of town again. Someone else will have to run with it until I return home.