Colorful Train

[Kelcey]

This photo has actually won me an award and I think it's quite good, but there's always room for improvement. What could I do to make it better?

It's an HDR with the everything but the train about 85% desaturated. I shot it at f/5 and 1/100 with a focal length of 18.
Any other metadata has gotten lost through processing.

Oops, I've just realized I've put this in the wrong section and I don't know how to move it. Help?!

[pgt123]

For me, the effect is a little bit too much and it looks overprocessed. It could be helped by increasing the saturation in the surrounding areas, but I think that the main problem is that the train has too much saturation and the HDR makes it too colorful. Otherwise, I think that the contrast of the train to the desaturated background is a really good one.

[Cud]

the subject definitely suits hdr, but perhaps too much 'dead space' in the bottom left of the picture?

[KansaiGreenie]

Hi Kelcey,

Wow! What a great image. Congrats on winning an award.

I won't comment on the processing because that is a purely artistic choice. However, it seems like the top part of the 'smoke stack' of the locomotive (upper-right corner) has been desaturated and I think it should be consistent with the rest of the train.

Otherwise, the only other thing that I would suggest... I'm bothered that the front edge of the 'cow catcher' is cut off and out of the frame. If you have Photoshop CS5 you might try the content aware fill feature. It might be able to add in the missing area.

Anyway, this is a very striking image. Well done!

KG