@Allen H First off to me you are an expert with the Static Grass. Yours looks amazing on any picture on your layout you have posted. Really looking forward to details like trees, people fishing ( do they really fish in such muddy water? ), docks, structures, etc... etc... This is gonna be cool
I am far from being an expert with static grass. I still have a lot to learn yet, but thanks for the kind words. For details..... rough grasses, tall reeds, trees and bushes are yet to come. As for other details like people, docks and boats, I doubt I'll place any around here, too cliché. I'm sure there would be some catfish or carp in waters like this though?
I took a little time away from the layout and scenery as I wanted a break and I decided to wrap up a couple of locomotive projects that had been collecting dust since the fall of 2019. One is a prototype and the other is a foob. Thanks to the tip from a fellow modeler, I also downloaded the CameraPixel Lite app and played with it for the following shots. I set it to shoot 10 images and dumped them into Helicon Focus then cleaned them up in my editor. The GP40 4710 is a prototype, the SD40-2 4796 is a Foob. A buddy started it then sold it to me, so I finished it. I think I'll reshoot this images once I get some trees planted behind the bridge. I also need to get them weathered so I can tone down those colors!
Here's a link to a shot of the prototype when it was sitting in UP's Council Bluffs yard after the shutdown. https://pbase.com/rocksosalla/image/165425107
After posting the last shots, I was told to try and get the iPhone lens as close to the ground as possible to represent a shot taken from track level. I help the phone in vertical, but upside down. Here's the result.
@BoxcabE50 & @HemiAdda2d Thanks Guys! One thing I'd like to figure out or learn is how to make some of my photos look as if they are taken with older film. Whether with an app or using my film editor. The color looks a little too rich.
Get a 35mm SLR. Converting film to CD or memory cards is available. Just a bit expensive and good developing is hard to come by.
You should be able to do a bit with your photo editing software. Varying the hues, converting to B&W, making it sepia toned, etc.
F'rinstance, here's @Allen H's photo with the saturation turned down 33% in FastStone, a free photo editor that I use a lot to fix exposure issues.
Yup, simply turning down the saturation will go a long way. I do have a couple decent editors, one has a lot of filters that I need to run through and see what they'll do. I think I recall seeing one that will specifically do what I want it do? You've seen the filter that turns videos into old black and white film that has scratches and blemishes and such, that's kind of what I think my editor has. I'm gonna have to look for it. Otherwise as you said Boxcab, playing around the saturation and hues will be the key.
After unexpectedly playing plumber this afternoon, I finally got a chance to dig out the big ol" box of Super Trees. I almost think I like ballasting better...
Been busy making some trees over the last week or so. I think I scored roughly 60 large trees this time around and about the same amount of smaller trees after pruning the larger ones. First I steamed about half of them to straighten them up, then soaked them in a Matte Medium bath. Today I got them painted. I sprayed the trunks with a gray primer, then shot the branches with a Camo brown and allowed the brown to mist down over the gray trunks. These smaller trees will be used for saplings and fillers. Here's one that I just finished next to one I made about a year ago. "I'm the Lorax and I approve these trees!"
