Not entirely the same sort of thing...

This was produced from three separate shots and composited using Photoshop (which I have for non-model railroading reasons):

The bridges are from Richmond, VA. The locomotive is a NJ Custom Brass import - you can see the Kadee coupler - and the smoke is from Steamtown.

Simply stunning!!!

CandOfan, awesome job combining 3 separate elements into one very convincing photo.

Quick background replacement with Affinity Photo and Luminar

I tend to throw away all my "Before" images when I've done extensive editing so here's a quick snap of a scene showing distractions in the background.

Original:

With a better shot of backdrop inserted:

With shot of sky above my house inserted:

Using Luminar to layer a darker sky on top of the shot above:

great use of sky replacement

Rick, those look great!

Agreed!!!

And those power lines put it over the top.

Using Corel Paintshop Pro

Both after and before.

Thanks Gentlemen

And back at 'ya! Great idea for a thread.

And a  to Bud too!

Wires

@Rick Sutton

Those skies look fantastic.  Funny about adding the wires, when I get shots of the protos and I have wires in the image, I'll use Luminar to get rid of them as they are distracting to me, but since your's is a model it does, as  lclarke1959 says, "Puts it over the top!"

Very nice.

Wonders of Electronics

Before and After.  Pic taken during an ops session on Doug Tagsolds' Colorado & Southern a few years back. Craig Wilson applied the magic mouse...

Great images by everyone!

Thanks Allen

I seems when you are in an old industrial area the poles and lines are everywhere! Even where I live (outside of a small town) utility lines are always alongside the roads.......anyway it's not so much that I added the lines but pointing my camera up to grab a sky photo outside my house it naturally included the lines......hey, they are everywhere so I take no extra measures to edit them out.

I haven't gotten into my own

I haven't gotten into my own serious photo editing yet, but I did get Affinity a few months ago and will soon get busy with it.  Meanwhile, I have used both FastStone and SageLight Photo Editor to impart effects in quite a few photos, and by that I mean using their cloning brushes to create smoke and steam effects.  I also attempt to take out the corner 'sky' problem in the backdrop, often with good results.

Some examples:

And, of course, there is photo stacking.  The Heisler is only four feet from the camera, and rests on a diorama.  The trees, shrubs, lower ground and far hills, including the glacier, are all real, and much more distant.

card for NEB&W

This first photo of the NEB&W was taken by member James Lauser. It got turned into this holiday card using GIMP. 

Will Luminar 4 do more

Will Luminar 4 do more mundane backgrounds? Does it require tracing the skyline?

I've been using a "clone" tool but that gets tedious.

Photo Manipulation...

First off, I am a bit envious of those of you that can overlay sky, etc, and create such fantastic looking scenes. My photo manipulation skills are primarily aimed at doing what's needed to turn a photo of a structure into a  printable structure for model railroading.

For me, though, photo manipulation introduces a unique "quandary". That is, I'll see a great looking photo of a model scene, and I find myself asking: Am I looking at actual modeling, or what?

I no longer know what is 3D modeling and what has been accomplished in the photo software. The result is that I find myself wondering if what I'm seeing in the photo is really what the layout looks like should I ever have the opportunity to view it firsthand. Via the "before/after" photos, I can now see that, no, I'm not seeing the actual layout. I'm seeing a manipulated photo. (Sometimes heavily manipulated.)

This is not a bad thing, and I don't mean it to come off like it is. Instead, I'm simply sharing an observation of how photo software has altered my perception of viewing "modeling". To wit: For some time now (since photo manipulation became common in model railroading) and I see a great looking scene that has photo-realistic backdrop scenes, I find myself wondering: "Is that really the layout?"

More often than not, I learn it is not the layout, but photos of the real world with models among the photos. Discerning if I'm seeing the actual layout or not can be made even more of a challenge with the advent of photo backdrops. (Which I hope to use myself.)

As for me, I figure IF I ever get to the scenery stage and by some miracle have a reasonably complete scene that I can photograph, I'll bet I'll end up using photo manipulation to cover the "model railroad" aspects such as slivers of fascia that can be seen, or a slice of the underside of the upper level, etc.

I guess photo manipulation has become a very vital tool in the modeler's bag of tricks that's used to make their modeling look ever more "real".

Welcome to "today's model railroading!

Andre

Luminar capabilities

Hi Mark,

I'm a newbie to the software but will try to answer your question nonetheless. Here is a photo of my layout unedited in any way, shape or form. 

Literally, with just a click of a button I can change this background with dozens of different sky templates.

Also, if you go my original post you can see that the software was intuitive enough to discern that those two black seat cushions that I used were in fact sky. Now, I first had to use the copy and paste (cloning) tool to eliminate things like the different color where the two cushions were joined but that is very quick work.

Visiting FY Tower

These pictures are from ye olde year 2000, and I'd just got a digital camera. I obtained (ahem) an early copy of Photoshop, and realized that the world of unethical journalism was opening in front of me.

Here's Mr Tubbs, the Assistant Manager of the Signals Department. He's just made a routine inspection of the interlocking at FY Tower, and he's taking a look around before getting back in his car. (All honest stuff so far.) Around the same time, I went for a walk beside the Charles River in Boston with my girlfriend and her dog (still honest):

And then I thought, why not visit FY Tower? So we went there, and we found that Mr Tubbs isn't a mean guy, but he doesn't let unauthorized people into the building.

I never figured out how to do the sky right, and I got bored and quit.

Andre

 You, my friend, have a very valid observation. It is indeed a bit of a quandary. I spent my career in recording studios and when digital editing came of age we faced the same situation. Some embraced it and some decried it. Most of us learned to use it judiciously to help the artist............it is a slippery slope at best and often the heavy use of the technology morphed the project into a completely artificial construction.

 Photo editing is almost a direct analogue to audio editing.

 A few random personal thoughts..........

 When I first dipped my toe into the photo editing world there were two tools I was looking for. Perspective manipulation (critical for photo-lam structures) and backdrop seam repair in layout photos. My hand painted backdrop is a big part of my layout's personality. It was built as continuous and seamless except for one area that has two windows. Those windows use panels inserted and painted. Along with the entrance door which is also part of the backdrop I have a couple of areas where seams can show up in photos. 

Lord! I'm rambling.

 Anyway as I got more comfortable with these digital tools I found more and more things it could do and slowly made some personal decisions along the way.

 I don't like to do full sky replacement if there is any other way to accomplish a good looking photo. Nothing wrong with a full replacement and honestly it is just the digital equivalent of shooting the photo outside with a real sky  etc. in the background. Very common in model photography and when done well it is stunning.......but almost always detectable to the eye. 

 I do "cheat" with repairs to small defects in the photo that wouldn't be seen in the layout room viewing. 

If I left a glue fingerprint on the boxcar I'll take that puppy out in a New York minute.....damn sure.

Shadows on the backdrop.......zip zip, see you later!

I sometimes move reality around a little to get the effect I'm after.......like a picture of my water tower in the distance moved a "little" to be included in an industrial district photo.

Dodging and burning (like in the old days of darkroom techniques) is used.

Other little enhancements that I'll keep secret......but always attempting to look like the actual layout......well, almost always.

I do find doing the "Full Monty" on a photo is a really good way to learn new methods and tools with the software. I recently did a makeover on a photo to turn it into a night scene. Below is a sliver of that photo......can't show the full image as the scene without all the manipulation was picked up for future publication.........but the many hours were not wasted.....learning is a fun part of this hobby.

Until next time......stay well

After then before - my offering to the topic

Good afternoon all,

Here's my "2 cents worth" on this topic. I used Photoshop Elements 3.0 to remove the background and insert the sky and trees. You can click on the photo for a larger image.  First, the "after" shot:

Next, the original shot. The modeling is of a New England town on a Free-mo module called Little Arlington.

These pictures were shot in 2009, if that makes any difference. Thanks for looking!

Tim Moran Akron, OH

Rick...

For those that have the skills, the results speak for themselves. Photo manipulation is definitely an asset in aiding to produce excellent "presentation" of one's modeling/layout.

Like I said, I'm sure I'll figure out how to use it to compliment my efforts as I progress with the layout... but when I view a great picture of some great modeling, I still wonder what's 3D and what's added via photo manipulation.

Ah, but it IS an integral part of today's modeling.

Andre

Wow!

When physical constraints would detract from an otherwise great shot, this is a fabulous way to make it work!

Next, how do I add another 20 years on my life to get all this understood and done!!!
 

Great discussion!

Andre

The NEB&W card on page two was obviously a fantasy picture created to give the image a cheery holiday feel while remaining mostly recognizable to club members and visitors. 

But my own tiny layout sits in a small room full of clutter.

For the foreseeable future my layout won't have any backdrop, not even plain blue. It's impossible to shoot anything but an extreme close up without some 1:1 sized stuff sneaking into a shot. Sometimes that can be cropped out, but other times that just doesn't look good, so a little sky from some outdor photo I've shot, or a little cloning to cover a snippet of the edge of the truncated scenery helps present a scene the way I see it in my mind's eye rather than the reality captured by an unimaginative camera. 

If the intent of a photo is to illustrate what is actually there, there are still times when a little dodging/burning makes the image easier to take in. Cameras can't capture the range our vision can quickly adjust to when looking over a scene. And like Rick alluded to, sometimes I simply like to experiment a little to see what effects might improve a scene, which can lead to redoing the model to look more like the photo.  

Avella before and after using Affinity stacking and Affinity to

Avella town is on a curve and getting a good picture down the tracks is really hard. Before and after of the same scene. Affinity in my opinion is easier to use. Have have photoshop elements and have redone pictures but to me is a lot harder.  

Northern lights

24 hour a day operations.