A Bratenahl Lamp

I'm still trying to get out of the winter doldrums. The best thing about winter images is that you can convert them to grayscale. Then you don't have to worry about bleak white/gray skies, lifeless color and low contrast.


On my way to downtown Cleveland, I hopped off the highway at Eddy Rd. and cruised along Lakeshore Blvd. I love the incredible mansions along the road built during a time of great prosperity in Northeast Ohio. I spotted this street lamp at the front of a long driveway. Using Adobe Lightroom I did the usually color treatment,--converted from RAW, white balanced using the eyedropper, cropped, added some vibrance and clarity, and finally, sharpened things up.

So now it's time to play!


First, I went for a more subdued version of the original at the top. Instead of rich color, this one goes for the faded. This is called cross processing which means doing a reverse of the normal way to adjust colors. Lightroom users have provided a number of "presets" you can use to experiement with cross processing or you can create your own presets.


This is a brownstone effect, not quite a sepia tone, but darker. It gives it the 1920's look it deserves.


Finally, I went for a faded color look. I wanted it to look like it was a print from the 1940's but starting to deteriorate. After reading the book, Nash Editions, I learned about how so many of the color images printed on Kodak paper in the 1940-50's faded out, especially the magenta color channel.

This image was captured on the Canon G9.

Copyright 2008 James D. Fisher
All rights reserved.