This was one of the first images I ever posted at Flickr, back last May, and is one of my all-time favourite pictures. The problem with the picture is that I took it with a Kodak Advantix disposable camera, and the colours were slightly overexposed. I fixed it the best I could in Photoshop, but it still looked overexposed.

Today, I downloaded the basic freeware version of Photomatix, a computer program primarily for people interested in creating HDR photos, but it's also terrific if you're not so much interested in creating true HDR pictures as you are in fixing overexposed pictures and bringing them as close as possible to the colours you could see in the original scene.

I simply took the original image, adjusted the "Levels" in Photoshop down, saved a "dark" version, then opened the "original" and the "dark" version in Photomatix Basic, and used "Combine -> H&S Details", and this is the result, which has fantastic colours, a lot more definition with the shadows, and reveals a couple of details that I never noticed in the photo before, like the taller building in the distance behind the traffic light on the right of the image.

I'm going to "replace" rather than "repost" various pictures I think I can improve. This repost is just to announce what I am doing.

Tags:   London England Panoramic Piccadilly Circus Crowd People Samsung Coca-Cola McDonald's Nescafé TDK Sanyo Gap Boots street scenes street scenes Portfolio10 APS Advanced Photo System Kodak Advantix geotagged UK United Kingdom Great Britain GB pedestrians traffic lights 麥當勞

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Taken at Montreal's Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve racetrack on Canadian Grand Prix weekend in June 2001, during a Ferrari race after the Formula 1 cars had finished their qualifying laps.

Tags:   Ferrari 360 Modena f-360 Ferrari 360 Ferrari 360 Modena car sports cars sports car exotic car exotic cars auto racing Montreal Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve Ile Notre-Dame Spider yellow red Shell Shell Oil logo Helix Shell Helix Air Canada advertising logos Pirelli tires Ferrari Beverly Hills Scottsdale Ferrari Quebec Canada geotagged カナダ ケベック モントリオール voiture cars automobile Ferrari 360 Challenge 法拉利 スポーツカー 跑车 赛车

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St. Pancras Station in London, which isn't the station from the Harry Potter books and films (King's Cross Station) but is the one right next door.

You can also see traffic on Euston Road, and O'Neills Pub.

Full-sized scan

March 4th, 2007: Remastered in Photomatix to correct the overexposure.

Tags:   London England Panoramic train stations St Pancras Euston London cab cab pub United Kingdom Euston Road Euston Rd. traffic cars automobiles autos voitures traffic lights geotagged taxi 電車

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Trafalgar Square, looking north towards the National Gallery. I love how I managed to get pretty much all of the National Gallery in this shot and not just the dome and Roman columns.

You can see a few of the famous Trafalgar Square pigeons, but, by July 2000, London was already beginning to crack down on them, for sanitary reasons.

I love seeing the fountain, the Soft Ice ice cream truck, and all the tourists in this shot.

I believe the statue is of King George IV on horseback. You can also see one of the lions surrounding Nelson's column, but I didn't take a picture of that (you can see a million photos of that elsewhere).

I turned this photograph into a drawing of Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery



Link to the full-sized scan.

Tags:   London England Panoramic Trafalgar Square National Gallery National Portrait Gallery crowd fountain ice cream van dome statues Portfolio10 APS Advanced Photo System Kodak Advantix geotagged WOW! 1-5-fav

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This is Covent Garden market, looking south towards the Doc Marten flagship store.

One thing I love about this particular photo is that some guy I never met, the guy in the dark shirt towards the bottom right of the photo, walked right into the shot, right into the vanishing point, and it honest to God looks like he's posing for me. Maybe he saw that I was taking a photo and decided to pose as a lark, or maybe it's just a coincidence and he just was standing, looking at something. I think he makes the photo all the stronger.

I did a drawing based on this photo.

Tags:   London England Panoramic Covent Garden Covent Garden restaurant crowd people Market phonebooth Portfolio10 Covent Garden Market Britain British Phone booth British telephone box terrasse Doc Marten store Westminster United Kingdom UK APS Advanced Photo System Kodak Advantix

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