Old Police Radio

[IShootPeople]

I went wandering around the grounds of an old family homestead in town today to see what I could find to take pictures of.

This old police radio has been intriguing for a long time, but I have never really gotten a good picture of it. I'm still not totally thrilled with this one, but it's a better attempt than I have done in the past!

C&C welcome!

[Scott Stephen]

You have more interesting stuff laying around your place than we do!

I like the shallow DOF with this. The rust is nice too. Cool.
I might have turned the front (dial side) a 1/4 turn more toward the light, just to show its details a little more clearly.

[CougarFool]

What a great old radio! I agree about turning it a bit more into the light. I would also try to clear some of the leaves away from the front and get nice and low for a shot.

[ChrisH]

Nice image Kim but I think I would have lightened the front of the radio particularly the dial.

[IShootPeople]

Thanks for the tips! I can always go back and reshoot, and I probably will at some point.

[gcowan]

I like your radio.
I would try a white or silver reflector to get a touch more light on the dial before turning it. If it doesn't work, then turn it. Once you do you will lose the feeling of the time that it has been sitting there, and the background which also tells some of the story.
Graham

[FrankMi]

Thanks for the tips! I can always go back and reshoot, and I probably will at some point.

Hi Kim. I hope you don't mind if I play with your image in post processing to show you the kinds of things that can be done without a reshoot. The effects may be a bit overboard and certainly can be toned down but I did it this way to give you an idea of the range of options available.

I opened the image in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and boosted the Recovery to compensate for the blown highlights. Then I increased the Black Point slightly to bring out the blacks.

Next I opened the image in Photoshop CS5 and made two additional copies, one with a Brightness of +100 and a second with a brightness of -100. This should be about the equivalent of shooting three images at 0EV, +2EV and -2EV to help bring out the details in the bright areas and shadows.

Using layers, I could have blended in the three images to get the bright and shadow details back into the original, but as I have Photomatix available, I let Photomatix do that for me with a couple of mouse clicks.

Back in CS5 I opened the result from Photomatix and masked out the background. I could then boost the appearance of just the radio without changing the background.

The last step was to use the mask to combine the radio and background into the final image.

Each person might want to season to taste using the various post processing adjustments.



You can compare the differences by opening the image in Lytebox and using the arrows to switch back and forth between the before and after images. You should notice that very little change takes place in the background, but the details in the radio should be easier to see.