Something for the weekend - Part 25 - A Bridge Too Far

[davescm]

Hi

The pic below is the bridge on the Royal Yacht Britannia. In service from 1954 until 1997 it is now berthed at Leith in Scotland and is a tourist attraction.  You can see that it comes from another era with hardly a modern control in sight. The trouble is , as a museum piece, it does not convey the sense of life and action that a working bridge would have. So can you bring it to life?

Anything goes as long as it meets the forum rules on decency, copyright etc.

Anyone is welcome to have a go - whether you are a complete beginner or a Photoshop expert.

There are no prizes - just the chance to practice, show off, or bring a bit of humour and fun.

When posting back your edited images please use jpeg and downsize to 1200px on the long side.

To download the image below without the forum scaling artefacts, right click and then use Save Image As / Save Picture As (or similar depending on your browser).

Have fun

Dave

[Trevor.Dennis]

An obvious idea, so I got my skates on.

[davescm]

Nice one Trevor ! 

Dave

[jane-e]

Oh, that's clever, Trevor!

[Rista12]

Not life on the bridge, I'm afraid, but a lively gift shop.  Well it could have been tea towels.

[jane-e]

Our Fuse lady returns! Love it, Rista!

[Trevor.Dennis]

A no doubt redundant tip, but when I am look for elements to composite over SFTW, or anything else for that matter, I put 'transparent PNG' at the end of the search string.  It is not foolproof, but a good 50% of the resulting hits will already be cut out.  You have to right click and save to a local drive of course, so it's an additional step over the usual right click and copy (which doesn't work — the PNG pastes with a black background).  So a massive time saver. Especially when you need a lot of elements.

[Semaphoric]

I saw a movie on TV once. Didn't catch the title, but it seemed to be about  a Farmers Market or something like that? Had lots of big stars from the 1970s. Unfortunately, they cut so much out of it (to reduce the running time, no doubt), that I couldn't follow the plot.

It was abridged too far.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Semaphoric  wrote

It was abridged too far.

Groan...   LOL

[Semaphoric]

You did say bridge, right?

[Trevor.Dennis]

Extra points for the highlighted image with appropriate preview, and there's even some believable EXIF info.  Now if you'd placed the file name and star rating beneath cell, that would have been _really_ impressive. 

[Semaphoric]

Trevor, I had "Thumbnails Only" checked in the view menu. I wanted the thumbs to fill the cells as much as possible, so it would look more 'Cohesive'. The file name of the selected one is 3b2.jpg - for cell B2 (as in a spreadsheet), and 3 for the third attempt at slicing up the original. Yes, it's a screenshot. Do I lose my extra points?

[KShinabery212]

I so want to play with this picture (actually started).  It is a really lovely photo.

But what I started would take forever.... and unfortunately my wife wants me to do something with her (it is Saturday).

What I started doing was selecting each of the main pieces of metal, then created a new layer. In that that layer with the selected area, I used a distressed brush to start painting decay (I like Urban Exploring Photos).  I then made that a Darken Layer.  So now it looks like pieces have begun to rust.

I also reopened up the file and gave the photo an HDR toning... then took it into Camera Raw and played with the various things and gave it a slight vignette.  I brought this new image in as a new layer and gave it 72% opacity.

But I am only four pieces in...  and I am guessing that would take me a lot longer to accomplish than I had anticipated.  If I were to continue it would look like it has been sitting there for a few years.

I could share the PSD with someone if they want to finish it.   As you can see how I started changing things.  If one or two people want it I can save it and send it to them.

In the bottom photo you can see how I started rusting out two parts of the drawer thing and then two of the blue pipes.  This process would be fun... but it requires a lot of painting and time to select each every piece.  But it could be fun for someone to do.

I was only using one grunge brush.... but for a better effect one should use multiple brushes with different sizes.  And then again every piece practically would have to undergo a similar process to age them in a way that looks natural and not so like a pattern.  It could be a lot of fun if someone has the time.

Here are the four parts that I painted just for you to see.  But as you can see if you select each individual part of metal and give it the rust effect it would take some time.  As each piece needs to be painted individually.

[davescm]

It looks like it's going to be a good weekend - some really diverse ideas coming in so far.

Trevor - I don't think your idea was obvious at all. A great start.

Rista - bonus points for bringing back a previous SFTW character.

Semaphoric - I like your translation of use of Bridge

KShinabery212 - Welcome to SFTW and thanks for the demo on achieving that rusty, grungy look.

Keep them coming - remember, everyone is welcome to participate.

Dave

[davescm]

Dave

[jane-e]

Bonus points for you, too, Dave, for including a previous SFTW!

Or maybe two? The teacup looks more like a coffee cup and the cookie morphed into sugar cubes!

[davescm]

Hi Jane

The coffee cup was a model I made a few years ago whilst learning to use Blender. But why create a new model when you have a previous one on file. So I just needed to mock up the newspaper page in Photoshop then and create a newspaper model alongside the cup.
As for the asbestos, it was that era when asbestos was used everywhere. Awful for those later affected.

Lot's of pirates there Trevor , including Rambo ? Not sure on the deck perspective though - would it have been better flipped horizontal?

Ged - a lick of paint and a new carpet. Many a home improvement has gotten away with that !

Dave

[jane-e]

davescm  wrote

As for the asbestos, it was that era when asbestos was used everywhere. Awful for those later affected.

I think asbestos has been banned in England, Dave, but not in the U.S. of A. Nearly 15,000 Americans die each year of asbestos related illness. It's been known to cause cancer since the early 1900s, but the manufacturers hid what they knew because personal profits were more important than the lives that would be destroyed. Many of us think they are murderers.
And now we have a President who called asbestos poisoning a mob-led conspiracy. His Environmental Protection Agency will no longer evaluate asbestos already in homes. My heart breaks for the young men who died due to their service on the Royal Yacht and for their wives who died because they washed their clothes.

http://www.newsweek.com/pruitt-trump-asbestos-chemicals-trump-962703

[davescm]

I'd not heard about issues of those working in the engine rooms Jane. It is now well accepted that asbestos , if disturbed, can be lethal and the rules on removal are, quite rightly, very strict. You're right about it being banned here since 1999.

Dave

[Trevor.Dennis]

Do you know, Dave, I just knew it was a naval ship.

[Guest]

Got the painters in

[Trevor.Dennis]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Ged+Traynor  wrote

Got the painters in

Ged, how long did it take to cut out the windows?  I think we should put up a transparent PNG to be kind, and encourage some more entries  

OK, so I have just learned something.  When I tried to upload this at its original 4000 pixels, the forum said no because the file size was >14Mb.  That was with the default medium compression, but even with highest compression, slowest saving, it was still a touch over 14Mb.  Dave's JPG is 5MB which is well under the forum upload limit of 8.8Mb.

I had to reduce image size to 2800 pixels to get under the limit with a transparent PNG, and I was not expecting that.  So if some of clever types who know about this stuff could give me a heads up, I'd be grateful.  I'm guessing that if you do websites you'd know how it works.

As it stands, click to expand, and right click and save to get the transparent windows.  It would work nearly as well flattening the image and uploading a JPG with full white windows, and they file size wouldn't then be a problem.

[Guest]

Trevor.Dennis  wrote

Ged, how long did it take to cut out the windows?

About 2 beers but I'm a quick drinker

[jane-e]

davescm  wrote

The pic below is the bridge on the Royal Yacht Britannia. In service from 1954 until 1997 it is now berthed at Leith in Scotland and is a tourist attraction.  You can see that it comes from another era with hardly a modern control in sight.

I finally looked it up (because I had to) and found this:

"It was estimated that a ship of aircraft carrier size could contain as much as 500 to 1,000 tons of asbestos and asbestos-containing material. Even as late as 1980, the Royal Yacht Britannia, built in 1952, was discovered to be still riddled with asbestos insulation when being decommissioned."

and this:

"Sadly, the Royal Navy is the principal biggest culprit. Worst affected of all are those who served on the Royal Yacht “Britannia”, which is a terrible scandal. Nearly everybody who served or did anything in the engine room of the Royal Yacht “Britannia” is now either dead or dying from diffuse mesothelioma. The Royal British Legion set up a special department to deal with this, because the tragedy is that people’s wives and children have got it, too, because you have only to wash the coat of somebody who has this to be a condemned person from that moment on."

[Trevor.Dennis]

jane-e 

Well I didn’t know that, and if diffuse mesothelioma is the same thing as asbestosis, it is not nice way to go.  

When asbestos was discovered to be a bad thing, we had asbestos curtains around our welding area.  When a person entered they needed to push the curtains out of the way, which must have filled the air with asbestos particles/dust, but when we asked management what they were going to do, our immediate boss said ‘It’s too late now. We might as well leave them.’  Thankfully, the powers that be were not so callous, and were probably looking ahead to all the pay outs, so they got rid very quickly.  We were told, at the time, that our curtains were white asbestos, and not the more dangerous blue, but Google tells me that both are bad.  Fifty years later, I have not heard of any of my then colleagues developing asbestos related illnesses, so who knows?

On another occasion they discovered asbestos lining the roof in the main workshop area when drilling through to the offices above to run telephone points.  It became a massive deal, and they shut the whole workshop, which was about 300 feet long, 100 feet wide, and 40 feet high.  Everything was lined with plastic sheeting, and a team of specialists (read cowboys) bought in to remove the asbestos. 

Our lab was right next door, and the workers used to have a tinny radio blaring on the other side of the wall and didn’t respond to requests to turn it down.  So we rigged a signal generator as close as we could get it to the offending radio, and swept the IF (intermediate frequency) which made the radio howl!  When we heard the workers come to investigate we’d turn the signal generator off, and they on again as soon as we heard them walk away.  They soon gave up and turned off the radio.