Since my car is getting a pedicure (i.e tire balancing and rotation) at Town Fair Tire today, I went rummaging through my basement for something interesting to photograph. I found my grandfather's old toolbox filled with bottles and jars containing rusty nails, nuts, bolts, and staples. The toolbox dates back to the 1930s and ultimately came to me when my grandfather passed away in '79.
To setup today's shot, I simply arranged a couple of sawhorses in front of the door to my furnace, placed the toolbox on the sawhorses, and lit the scene with a single 40 watt Phillips natural light incandescent bulb. The clamp light was placed to create those deep shadows to the left of the box. I wanted a very gritty and grainy image, so that played heavily into the post processing.
Post processing started with a classic filter in Topaz B&W FX. I adjusted color sensitivity sliders, adaptive exposure, regions, boost black, boost white, and contrast. The detail slider was pushed pretty far and that's what emphasized the grit and grain. A sepia photo filter in darker color blend mode followed by a levels adjustment was added in PSE.
