The Engineer greets a family arriving at the Polar Express Train Station for today's magical journey to the North Pole. The trip to visit Santa and Mrs. Claus takes 90-minutes and includes a full reading of Chris Van Allsburg's classic. Every child on board receives a coloring book with crayons and a special gift presented by Santa himself. The Chef makes his way through the passenger cars, delivering hot chocolate, and The Conductor punches each child's ticket aboard the train. The Polar Express is operated by the Providence and Worcester Railroad.
I decided to do something a bit different with the post processing in light of the subject. I wanted to give it a timeless feel, especially with characters in the scene from various time periods from the 19th to the 21st centuries. I started with a brilliant warm filter in Topaz Adjust, and then adjusted adaptive exposure, contrast, and protect highlights. In PSE I added a levels adjustment, followed by a deep blue photo filter. I then applied a smoke grey gradient map in darker color blend mode at 50% opacity. A hue and saturation adjustment was added where I significantly desaturated the image while adjusting the hue to keep to the original colors. A grain texture was added as the final touch.
