HA! - I really like the one with the thief getting arrested - we all know
that RR yards are kind of ... "gritty" to say the least.  But these photos
got me thinking -there is a lot of work in these scenes, and every RR that
I've been around is just dirty - oily, dusty, rusty stuff - and these
layouts are pristine- even the thief is clean - so, I wonder why it is that
these very creative people who make these amazing layouts don't simulate
these factors as well?  I know it's not impossible because I've gotten oil
and dust on things - even little things - but shouldn't these trains have
dust and dirt and smashed insects (little tiny ones) on them?  shouldn't
there be oil and rusty cans around the tracks?

I've uploaded pictures (1 taken at Woking here
http://mikehughes627.fotopic.net/p61116341.html
Apologies for poor quality of colour. I don't know what happened but it
seems the lights at the venue gave everything a very yellow colour,
especially when photos were taken using small aperture settings.

I've done the best that I can so far to adjust the colour but it probably
needs more time than I have at the moment to get better results. If anyone
has any experience of fixing this kind of problem I'd appreciate some
advice.

Seaboard Southern's pictures (26) start here
http://mikehughes627.fotopic.net/p61116397.html

I used my new macro lens on some of these photos. I'm quite impressed with
some of those - especially of my personal layout, Lynneton Yard

Enjoy
--
Mike Hughes
Marketing Co-ordinator NMRA British Region
Modelling the North American Way
Interested in American trains real and model?
Look here http://mikehughes627.fotopic.net/

I've uploaded pictures (1 taken at Woking here
http://mikehughes627.fotopic.net/p61116341.html
Apologies for poor quality of colour. I don't know what happened but it
seems the lights at the venue gave everything a very yellow colour,
especially when photos were taken using small aperture settings.

I've done the best that I can so far to adjust the colour but it probably
needs more time than I have at the moment to get better results. If anyone
has any experience of fixing this kind of problem I'd appreciate some
advice.

"Mike Hughes" <mike at (no spam) mikehughes.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:kBmX5UC7fDuKFw3d at (no spam) mikehughes.demon.co.uk...
I've uploaded pictures (1 taken at Woking here
http://mikehughes627.fotopic.net/p61116341.html
Apologies for poor quality of colour. I don't know what happened but
it seems the lights at the venue gave everything a very yellow colour,
especially when photos were taken using small aperture settings.

I've done the best that I can so far to adjust the colour but it
probably needs more time than I have at the moment to get better
results. If anyone has any experience of fixing this kind of problem
I'd appreciate some advice.


What photo software are you using? Most of them have an 'auto fix' mode
somewhere that usually does a pretty good job of fixing color.

What appears to have happened is the 'white balance' function in your
camera was not properly set for the lighting. This can be fixed on the
back end (as above), but it is better to get it right in the camera.
Look up 'white balance' in the index of your camera manual.

I did enjoy the pictures. Thanks for continuing to share.

Regards,
LD

In message <h9a6mq$he9$1 at (no spam) news.eternal-september.org>, LDosser
LD at (no spam) invalid.invalid> writes
"Mike Hughes" <mike at (no spam) mikehughes.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:kBmX5UC7fDuKFw3d at (no spam) mikehughes.demon.co.uk...
I've uploaded pictures (1 taken at Woking here
http://mikehughes627.fotopic.net/p61116341.html
Apologies for poor quality of colour. I don't know what happened but it
seems the lights at the venue gave everything a very yellow colour,
especially when photos were taken using small aperture settings.

I've done the best that I can so far to adjust the colour but it
probably needs more time than I have at the moment to get better
results. If anyone has any experience of fixing this kind of problem
I'd appreciate some advice.


What photo software are you using? Most of them have an 'auto fix' mode
somewhere that usually does a pretty good job of fixing color.

I use the software that came with my Canon 450D when I bought it in 2007.
I have Photoshop but don't know how to use it. Most of my knowledge has
been picked up as I've been taking photos. That's why I've signed up at
my local college to learn how to use a digital camera. They start with the
basics then move on course by course. I reckon it will take about 18
months to get to the course on Photoshop ))

What appears to have happened is the 'white balance' function in your
camera was not properly set for the lighting. This can be fixed on the
back end (as above), but it is better to get it right in the camera. Look
up 'white balance' in the index of your camera manual.

I did enjoy the pictures. Thanks for continuing to share.

Regards,
LD

--
Mike Hughes
Marketing Co-ordinator NMRA British Region
Modelling the North American Way
Interested in American trains real and model?
Look here http://mikehughes627.fotopic.net/

"Mike Hughes" <mike at (no spam) mikehughes.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
....
Apologies for poor quality of colour. I don't know what happened but
it seems the lights at the venue gave everything a very yellow colour,
especially when photos were taken using small aperture settings.
....
What photo software are you using? Most of them have an 'auto fix' mode
somewhere that usually does a pretty good job of fixing color. What

appears to have happened is the 'white balance' function in your camera
was not properly set for the lighting. This can be fixed on the back end
(as above), but it is better to get it right in the camera. Look up
'white balance' in the index of your camera manual.

I did enjoy the pictures. Thanks for continuing to share.

I've uploaded pictures (1 taken at Woking here
http://mikehughes627.fotopic.net/p61116341.html
Apologies for poor quality of colour. I don't know what happened but it
seems the lights at the venue gave everything a very yellow colour,
especially when photos were taken using small aperture settings.

I've done the best that I can so far to adjust the colour but it
probably needs more time than I have at the moment to get better
results. If anyone has any experience of fixing this kind of problem I'd
appreciate some advice.

Seaboard Southern's pictures (26) start here
http://mikehughes627.fotopic.net/p61116397.html

I used my new macro lens on some of these photos. I'm quite impressed
with some of those - especially of my personal layout, Lynneton Yard

Enjoy

Hi,

LDosser wrote:
"Mike Hughes" <mike at (no spam) mikehughes.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
...
Apologies for poor quality of colour. I don't know what happened but
it seems the lights at the venue gave everything a very yellow
colour, especially when photos were taken using small aperture settings.
...
What photo software are you using? Most of them have an 'auto fix'
mode somewhere that usually does a pretty good job of fixing color.
What

It may actually be a very bad idea to try and fix the final JPEGs
because there is rather little room for improvement before you start
loosing a lot of image detail and the photos lood worse "fixed" than
just off-color. Happy be those who have set their camera to "raw"
before ;-)

appears to have happened is the 'white balance' function in your
camera was not properly set for the lighting. This can be fixed on
the back end (as above), but it is better to get it right in the
camera. Look up 'white balance' in the index of your camera manual.

The EOS series have a setting for "custom white balance" - just look it
up in the manual - basically you shoot a "measurement picture" of a
white sheet of paper (gray card). The camera calculates the white
balance setting which is used until you select something different.

If you're still in doubt, get a larger memory card (I learned by
experience) and set your camera to record "raw" - then get the software
from <http://www.rawtherapee.com> or use the Canon utility do do the
raw conversion at home, which is pretty simple if you start out with
white balance only (and probably a bit of exposure ;-)

When I recently looked at some older pictures I had taken in a model
train exhibition, I concluded that I will need to take a "gray card"
(piece of white paper) and a tripod if I ever go to an exhibition again
- even when "repairing" the raw images at home, you need a source for
the white balance setting. RawTherapee can use any reference area of
the image to calculate the correct settings, provided the area contains
a "neutral gray" which can be anything from white to black, as long as
it's neutral. But you still need that reference, which can be a
business card (if it's white), a backpack strap or anything. And in a
model railroad exhibition the conditions will not vary too much, so
just make sure you take an extra photo of your wife/girlfriend/child
and make sure they either wear something suitable or hold a
sufficiently large card ;-)

Again, the "wife with reference" will work best if you shoot in raw
format, otherwise, do the white balance custom setting thingy Check
it out in the manual, it's not that difficult. If the pictures should
still be a little off, it's hopefully so little that you can correct it
without too much loss of detail But if you shoot in JPEG you should
make sure that you have little or no corrections to do afterwards, as
each and every thing you do to the picture will loose you quality -
even if you "only" crop the picture (which means de-compression and
re-compression) - you loose image quality. You probably won't notice,
but it adds up quite quickly and you'll see ugly artifacs. Sure there
is a little room for corrections, but it's actually quite small. Using
raw pictures, you have a lot of room for changes as *a lot* of
information will be lost when converting to JPEG, but it's before the
compression, so you still get the highest quality JPEG... But then,
shooting raw pictures means you'll need five times as much memory ;-)

Personally I'm not a fan of Photochop, partially because I think GIMP
is just as good for home and hobby use and partially because I'm so
tired of the "Photoshop hype" But what I write will apply to
Photochop as well as GIMP or any other ;-)

Thanks for the information. I've decided to go to absolute basics and

I did enjoy the pictures. Thanks for continuing to share.

I've been spending some time on my loft layout recently. I've now got 8

I did enjoy the pictures. Thanks for continuing to share.

I've been spending some time on my loft layout recently. I've now got 8
roads laid in the yard area. My next step is to fully test the 'main'
and 'secondary' routes before painting and ballasting the track.

In the meantime I've just got down from the loft having spent quite a
few hours there today. I've taken some of my rolling stock out of the
boxes to set them on the track. I've come to realise that putting stock
in and out of the boxes is very time consuming and causes damage so
this time I've taken them out of the box, checked the running quality
(the Micro Mart truck tuner is brilliant for getting stock to run),
changed wheels (or set them to one side ready for a full wheel change
session!), checked coupler heights and action on my setup track and
then placed them on the track where they will stay.

I now have one train with an SD75/SD40-2 lashup and 20 covered hopper
cars which fit comfortably into the longest of my yard tracks; an ABA
F3 with 7 coaches and 4 box cars which is my test train (if they will
go around so will most other stock), plus an SD9 with 12 cars which
fits comfortably on one of the shorter 'secondary' yard tracks.

I'm hoping to get two friends to come along in a couple of weeks so
that we can have a 'let's test the main routes' session. Then I can
wire in the Tortoises, as make a start on some scenery. I'll post
pictures when I take them if you're interested

In between all the preparations for the NMRA British Region Convention I

Thanks for the information. I've decided to go to absolute basics and
signed up for an evening course at my local college. The only problem is
that it will take about 9 months to get to the stage where they can
answer this problem

In the meantime the help of people here is much appreciated

I've been spending some time on my loft layout recently. I've now got 8
roads laid in the yard area. My next step is to fully test the 'main'
and 'secondary' routes before painting and ballasting the track.

boxes to set them on the track. I've come to realise that putting stock
in and out of the boxes is very time consuming and causes damage so this
....

I now have one train with an SD75/SD40-2 lashup and 20 covered hopper
cars which fit comfortably into the longest of my yard tracks; an ABA F3

Hi,

snip

The best advice I can give you is to take your camera and go take
pictures. Practice in your loft and try out different methods, until
you find one that makes good pictures and is not overly complicated ;-)

That's exactly what I've been doing to the past two and a half years.

In message <hbpoph$u53$1 at (no spam) daniel-new.mch.sbs.de>, Bernhard Agthe
dark2star at (no spam) gmx.net> writes
Hi,

snip

The best advice I can give you is to take your camera and go take
pictures. Practice in your loft and try out different methods, until you
find one that makes good pictures and is not overly complicated ;-)

That's exactly what I've been doing to the past two and a half years. I'd
only just got the 450D when I went to Canada in 2007. I didn't even have a
UV filter. Everything was shot on automatic mode- and the results were not
the best. (have a look at the results on the 'real' section of my fotopic
site)

Your Canada results were 'not the best'? They were fine!

Most of the time auto mode is good enough and far better than what one
got with sunny 16.

Hi,

LDosser wrote:
Your Canada results were 'not the best'? They were fine!

Agree!

Most of the time auto mode is good enough and far better than what
one got with sunny 16.

Auto mode will give pretty good results, though when post-processing my
(raw) pictures I practically always correct the color temperature...
And quite often I do some exposure (brightness) adjustment, though
that's quite a bit of "personal style" The biggest drawback to auto
mode is that it disallows "raw" - so my camera's "full auto" or
"scenery" modes get little use, if any. Mostly I stay in "P" or one of
the "Av", "Tv" or "M" modes, with "M" used least ;-)

As for your selection of software - personally I don't like Photoshop -
in part because there's such a hype about it, in part because the
referent in our "photo course" (who also gives photoshop lessons)
didn't know how to use it (ugh) and most importantly, it doesn't run on
Linux Most of my photo processing is the actual raw conversion and
I find the free "RawTherapee" the best tool, especially under Linux
For anything more complicated I use GIMP, as it brings all he functions
I need and I don't see why I should pay more than 80 Euro for something
I don't need anyway - because I mostly use a very small subset of the
functions the software offers. So, it's a bit of learning to handle the
alternatives, but then you need to learn Photoshop, too ;-)

But if you personally like it, then go for it ;-)

Ciao...