The Front Stretch

Photo of the Day

I had this idea for a picture a while back, but the image was on an old hard drive. While moving everything over to my Drobo I imported my pictures from Carb Day last year in Indy. I have always liked this picture of the front stretch. Being Carb Day though the stands were very empty. For that reason alone I did not think that this shot was all that worthy. I had one idea though that might make this picture much better.

Technical Data

I originally made this picture using three images that I combined in Photomatix to make one HDR image. I was very happy with the result as it brought all of the color and texture out from that day. This was what I saw. That being said I wanted to go a step further here. I used Focal Point 2.1 from On One Software to give it a tilt shift look. I really think that this effect took a normal picture and made it pop just a bit more. I really like what this software can do, and I will try and make use of it much more as time goes on. Just before I exported the photo I used the spot removal tool to get rid of the plane and banner that was flying in the corner. When the blur was applied it looked more like a dust spot than a plane so it had to go. I have a couple of more ideas for the Focal Point Software that I will try when the cars come back to Indy this May.