KEK's Road Photography

[KEK Inc.]

http://kekinc.deviantart.com/gallery/#Photography

I only have 4 up right now.  I did a series for an art class, and I just desaturated the surroundings while keeping the road itself colored. 

[Truvelo]

I like the ones with the yellow lines. You might need to use some minor adjustment to remove the slight traces of color from the edges of the road.

[agentsteel53]

I just desaturated the surroundings while keeping the road itself colored.  

can you explain how you do that?  I would like to do that without having to do a whole lot of masking by hand.  Is that possible?

I literally lied on my belly taking this photo on a stretch of road where the speed limit is 50 MPH (and this is a local stretch of road for drag races).

heh, 50 is nothing; I've lain down on roads with speed limit 80!

[Truvelo]

I just desaturated the surroundings while keeping the road itself colored.  

can you explain how you do that?  I would like to do that without having to do a whole lot of masking by hand.  Is that possible?

I'm not sure what he used but I have an old version of Photoshop Elements. In the Enhance menu go to Color, Hue/Saturation and then in the Edit box choose from a list of colors the closest to the color you want to remove and then click on the image the color you want to see removed, in this case I've removed the green from the signs. The color band at the bottom of the box has sliders that adjust the range of the color to be altered. A wider range would allow the green in the vegetation to be removed as well.

[agentsteel53]

In the Enhance menu go to Color, Hue/Saturation and then in the Edit box choose from a list of colors the closest to the color you want to remove and then click on the image the color you want to see removed,

I have tried that in Photoshop CS3 but it is nowhere near universal in succeeding at identifying regions to turn b/w.  I've always had to do it manually...

[KEK Inc.]

I just desaturated the surroundings while keeping the road itself colored. 

can you explain how you do that?  I would like to do that without having to do a whole lot of masking by hand.  Is that possible?

I literally lied on my belly taking this photo on a stretch of road where the speed limit is 50 MPH (and this is a local stretch of road for drag races).

heh, 50 is nothing; I've lain down on roads with speed limit 80!

I use GIMP.

1.  Select the road with the color selector (pick a threshold around 30-80)
2.  Hold shift and select the yellow lines and any area you want to keep saturated.
3.  Invert Selection
4.  De-saturate.
5.  ???
6.  Profit

This method only really works if you have a high contrast between the surroundings and the road itself.    If you want, I could post screenshots or a YouTube video.

--
Well, you've been lucky. 
--
@ Truvelo:  Honestly, I liked it the way it was, but some people commented on that.  It's an easy fix.

[agentsteel53]

This method only really works if you have a high contrast between the surroundings and the road itself. 

indeed.  for low contrast, do you really just find yourself playing "pixel sorter" by hand, and there's no way around it?

[KEK Inc.]

This method only really works if you have a high contrast between the surroundings and the road itself.

indeed.  for low contrast, do you really just find yourself playing "pixel sorter" by hand, and there's no way around it?

For low contrast, I'd use the free-select tool.  GIMP has a point-by-point path selector that works pretty well too.  Unless you're using a laptop touch pad, it's not that tedious.

[WillWeaverRVA]

Traces of color or no, you've got some good stuff up there.

[KEK Inc.]

Traces of color or no, you've got some good stuff up there.

Thanks.  I may take some photos in California now that I'm here and have a car here.