'Nuther crawling newbie and two random shots

[JasonInAugusta]

My buddy Kenny has gotten into crawling.

Picked up the AX10, the Novak Rooster Crawler with 55T motor, JR 8711 servo, DX2, and has been having a blast.

He recently picked up a TCS Edge chassis, some punisher driveshafts, lots of aluminum for the axles, and has continued modding the thing.

When I went out to shoot pictures of the rock racer he went along. I ended up laying on the rocks to get the shots and Kenny ended up helping prep the area for pictures. The air shots like this one were set up with a rock that was half buried in the loose rock. Getting the truck to launch right for photos was tricky (and took several attempts) but we ended up getting some cool shots. Like always I end up shooting some random stuff, thinking that one day I'll make use of the off-the-cuff shots that I never use.

While laying on the rocks I noticed that Kenny had ROCK tattooed on the fingers of his right hand (STAR is on the left) and had to snap the shot. His nickname is "Rock Star", has been for a good, long while. No idea what we'll call him now that he's a crawler. Probably Kenny.



This 2nd shot was taken with me laying on the ground again, getting framed up for a shot of the rock racer launching. We decided we needed more loose rock and dirt so we moved the rig and Kenny started adding rock. While checking focus I couldn't help but notice how Kenny's tattooed arm stood out in contrast with everything else in the shot. I figured that it'd be a cool shot with everything in B&W except for Kenny's arm.



Anyway, couple of random shots that I finally photochopped.

[2JSC]

Awesome shots. I like the one with his hand just hovering there... what kind of camera do you use?

[Jamus]

I'm completely ignorant when it comes to photography but how do you make a picture like the second one? What program do you use to split up the color and B&W?

[JasonInAugusta]

I still use an old Canon 20D.

One of these days I'll upgrade.

Originally Posted by Jamus

I'm completely ignorant when it comes to photography but how do you make a picture like the second one? What program do you use to split up the color and B&W?

I opened the image in photoshop, selected the entire image, copy/pasted (which pasted a duplicate over the original in a new layer), used "desaturate" to make the new layer B&W, then used the eraser tool to erase the B&W arm from that layer.

[Jamus]

Thanks, I'm going to go try it out.

[Etype R]

Jason, you should try using vector masks instead of erasing. Easier to add parts of the image back, as the vector mask is just a black and white cutout. Plus you can feather the edges, for a smoother trasition.

[2JSC]

Originally Posted by Etype R

Jason, you should try using vector masks instead of erasing. Easier to add parts of the image back, as the vector mask is just a black and white cutout. Plus you can feather the edges, for a smoother trasition.

Or you can use the pen-tool to make a super precise selection and use Ctrl+Alt+D to feather the selection and delete it. There are hundreds of ways of doing the same thing in Photoshop.