Light Trails

[gpics07]

First attempt at this sort of shot. Shot was taken about 7:30pm in the evening, hopefully the fog helped to make the shot a bit more atmospheric. Unfortunately the road was not quite as busy as I had hoped at that time. I don't currently have a tripod so I had to use my Gorillapod, which was ok, but not quite as steady as I would have wanted for a 20 second exposure.

Camera: D90
Lens: 18-105mm VR kit lens
Camera Mode: Manual
Shutter Speed: 20 Seconds
Aperture: f/11
ISO: 100
Tripod: Yes - Gorillapod
Flash: No

Processing

- 1 x RAW exposure
- Shot imported into Lightroom 2
- Keywords added
- Shot cropped to improve the composition. Was originally a landscape shot
- Shadows set to –100 to make the blacks really black!
- Clarity reduced to give the glow effect
- Temperature increased as the camera had set if very low when the exposure was taken
- Vibrance increased to make the colours stronger
- Image exported into Photoshop as a TIFF
- Image resized to a smaller size (more suitable for the web)
- Used the clone stamp tool to remove a few additional light sources by the side of the road (which I felt were distracting)
- Small amount of Smart Sharpen applied
- Exported as a JPG for use on the web

[kgb224]

Outstanding light trails captured by you.