Perhaps some background is in order. I have about a dozen "safety shots" lined up in my neighborhood for days when I cannot range too far for a photo. Today was one of those days since my car was being serviced and I had no transportation available. Murphy being the fun-loving prankster that he is, though, decided to couple my not having a car with a sleet and rain combination that left a thin layer of unattractive slush on just about everything. As the military is wont to say, "the best laid plans never survive first contact with the enemy." Which brings us, of course, to today's photo. This is a rowboat that had some very nice faded coloration on the underside, so I thought it would make an interesting safety shot. The background, though, on such a bleak day was very busy and very distracting. The background added nothing to the shot. The foreground was covered in that ugly layer of slush, and it added nothing to the shot either. As a result, I looked upon this as a post-processing challenge to turn a nothing shot into something interesting. I also saw it as the opportunity to experiment a bit.
I went through a number of different post processing techniques before settling on this one. Topaz Adjust was used to pop the color a bit, mainly to produce some color contrast over the original. On top of that, I added a poster lines filter. That effectively reduced the foreground as you see it, and at the same time it added some interesting texture to the actual subject. I then added a solid layer color of "Grey-Asparagus" and used a color blend mode. (For anyone that likes the color, it's Hex 465945 in Photoshop.) This produced a monochrome image without using a gradient map. I added a levels adjustment and a brightness / contrast adjustment to produce the finished product. The slight greenish tint from the color layer is a nice change from a black and white, and I think it did a decent job of producing a more interesting photo than the somewhat drab original.
