Machine Shop Pictures

Strong light through the window wall to create realistic shadows on the carpenter workbenches

 I have not installed the machine shop in its final location. This was a good time to take some photos of the interior, while I still can maneuver the structure for the best angles and light. Nonetheless, it was tricky to take these shots as I had to balance light on the interior to see the detail, but not too much light to look unrealistic. 

All of these figures except JB Clough are ones I digitally sculpted. 

COL Haupt (superintendent) , JB Clough (chief engineer) and MG Burnside (Commander)  visit the Machine shop

I removed the roof on the right side to add light
and added a small LED light in the 
foreground

February already?

 

A foggy morning at Aquia Landing

I missed the January update. In mid-January Alicia and I went to Costa Rica for 11 days. Then the ice storm hit. It took us 4 days to get home, with three days in Florida waiting for American Airlines to remember how to run an airline. We eventually gave up on American and bought tickets on Delta. They got us home without too much fuss.  

The trip was great. It ranged from a camping out-like adventure in cabins on the Pacific Coast, to stays in deluxe hotels with private gardens. We took 3 different boat rides through mangrove swamps, and river along the Nicaraguan border.  We saw a good portion of northern Costa Rica.

We hiked in the rain forest low lands and mountains. Our guide was great and he found lots of good hot spots for bird watching. We logged 247 different bird species and 140 lifers. I posted an assortment o f bird pics on my face book page. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1De6AjTXPw/

Alas, while we were in the rain forest, Alicia caught a chest cold. I got it two days later. It turns out it was actually a case of the flu despite us both getting flu shots. It took us nearly two weeks and a trip to the doctor to finally start feeling better. 

This week I felt well enough to start building some models. I'll post more on that later. 

Meantime, I played around with atmospheric effects on some of my model railroad shots.

Dawn on the Aquia Line

November Update

 I spent most of November traveling to various locations so not much work on the layout. 

John poses by part of his large layout

November started with a Joint division NMRA meeting for the Potomac and James River sub-Divisions. I visited two layouts in the afternoon. John Swanson's PRR layout and Cam Green's new O Scale Maine Central. John has done a lot of work on his layout since my last visit. It is an impressive layout. 

Hand for scale shows that this is not HO scale. 

Cam has accomplished an amazing amount of work on his new O scale layout in a short time. People were surprised when he tore down his former HO, double deck layout to start this new project. But I like what I saw. It's a big layout that features a relatively simple plan with a mainline loop and a branch. But it looks more complex than that because there is also a wye and the loop has a large portion under the main level. The large O scale engines are impressive. It will be fun to watch this layout develop.

Arizona

The travel started when Alicia and I left for a week long visit to Northern Arizona to see the Grand Canyon and then golf at Sedona. I had never been to the Grand Canyon before. It was spectacular. I did find it a bit strange that the canyon is so deep and narrow at the bottom when viewed from the south rim visitor's center that it was hard to gauge the full depth. I contrast that with my earlier visit to Canyonlands, where more of the whole depth can be seen. I was also surprised to learn that the south rim is heavily forested. I didn't  expect that. It really is a beautiful site. I managed to catch the Grand Canyon Railroad as it arrived at the south rim while we were there. 

Sedona is a spectacular mountain town that probably ranks number 1 of all the mountain towns I have been to in the US and Canada. (Note I have not been to Jasper or Banff which I suspect are more spectacular). We played some golf and I did a fair amount of bird watching both at the Grand Canyon and in the areas around Sedona such as Page Springs - see below. Hard to believe this is Arizona.

I did see a lot of cool birds on the trip.  These are two of my favorites, both taken at Page Springs. 

Northern Pygmy Owl

It was late in the day when I photographed this black phoebe. The resulting slow shutter speed left the wings in a blur, but the face is relatively sharp.

Yucatan, Mexico

We returned home for a few days to recover before I  flew to Merida, Yucatan with my brother, Rob, for the grand opening of JAMYBO, Professor Enrique Castaño's new bonsai garden. My brother was one of the guests of honor who participated in the ribbon cutting ceremony. There were folks from around the world at the event. 

One portion of Enrique's Bonsai Garden ay JAMYBO

Enrique (in the red shirt) listens to Herman on the right do a critiques of some of Enrique's trees. Enrique's garden has been described a probably the best collection of bonsai trees in Latin America, including species that are endemic to Yucatan. Enrique told us that he can't grow non-native species as the local ants eat them too quickly.

Two Crane Hawks near Merida

Enrique asked me to document the wildlife on his property for use in an application to the Mexican government for some type of nature preserve status.  Just what I needed, an excuse to take bird pictures.

 I also spent a day with a profession bird guide, Ramón Trinchan Guerra from Yucatan Bird Tours. He was an excellent guide.  Between Enrique's Garden and Ramon's hot spots, I saw 106 species of birds in the Yucatan, including two endemic species. Ramon got this photo of me taking pictures of the flamingoes that are common in this area. 

Prairie Warbler at Enrique's Garden

. 

Rob and I also played golf at the uber exclusive Yucatan Country Club (the most expensive round of golf I ever played), we visited the Mayan Ruins at Uxmal  (pronounced Oosh-mal), the beach at Sisal, and the Maya Museum in Merida. 

We also stopped by a nice hobby shop in Merida and met the owner and his sons. They were having a model show, so we got to see some  nice entries.  Everyone was super friendly. 

Arturo and his sons at the hobby shop. The fellow throwing the shaka hand signs is an American Civil War model specialist that lives in Merida. He had some nice ACW figures in the show.

Part of the juego de pelota maya  court at Uxmal

Main structure at Uxmal. 

Anuar (lower right) took us to an authentic Yucatan Restaurant. The food was interesting and very good.  Anuar is a bonsai artist but his main job is tracking and studying jaguars in the wild. He promised to take me out with him the next time I visit Yucatan. 

We had a great time with the bonsai folks. We even managed to get invited to more bonsai trips including the Czech Republic, Columbia, Ecuador and Brazil. All great birding spots too.

Kentucky

I got home late from from Mexico and immediately left the next morning to visit my son and his family in Kentucky for Thanksgiving. We had a great time playing with Ruka. She is growing so fast. 

Chase said, "Ruka is into planes now." So we took her to the Kentucky Museum of Aviation

Frosty sunrise on our way home

When I got home, I had a lot of catching up to do for Alkem Scale Models. 

Go wide

Test shot with new wider angle lens

Some new photos of the layout

I spent the past few days shooting pictures of the layout for an upcoming article. Even though the Aquia Landing area isn't done, this picture captures the look and feel I am going for. It just needs more of everything. 

I used PS Generative AI to extend the water into the aisles in the photo.

Switch Stand Repairs and New Photos

Troops envy the conductor as he rides past.

Replacement switch stand at Falmouth

I replaced the three-way switch stand at Falmouth. During yesterday's  op session I observed that the throw was not symmetrical. The stands are supposed to have symmetrical rotation in each direction. As I inspected it and operated it I realized that the axle, which acts as the pivot point for the throw rod had popped loose on one side of the stand. Thus the pivot axle was only supported on one side. So it was basically wiggling inside the switch stand. This created uneven rotation and a lot of slop.  The easiest way to fix it was to replace it. 

So I built a new switch stand with a much beefier pivot axle. I originally designed the switch stand throw rod  to use a 0.010 pivot axle and a 0.032 in connection to the rails. But for this one, I drilled out the pivot holes to 0.025 inches to accept a beefier pivot rod.  I also left a bit more of the pivots rods stand proud of the stand surface. That way if there is any deflection in the stand as the operators work it, it will be less likely to pop out.  

I installed the new switch stand and it works like it is supposed to. So all is good. The old switch stand went in the junk pile by the engine terminal.

The new guard rail

I also noticed that the switch leading to the engine service and turntable was missing one of its guard rails. I suppose that is a good sign that the switch operated well without the guard rail. But, I added it tonight so it should run more reliably  in the future. 

I have been working on my presentation for the RPM East 2023 in a few weeks. I took some new photos to freshen up my presentation. One is shown above. 

Blasts from the Past with a Topaz AI twist

A shot of on my former HO Scale PoLA layout.  I used PS to replace the sky and Topaz AI to sharpen it. The engines were provided by Ramon Rhodes.

I recently went through some of my older photos of the various model railroad layouts I have built  for use in the local NMRA newsletter.  I decided to process some of the images through Topaz AI to see how they looked. I was very impressed with how  images looked after processing. Noise wasn't too much of an issue with these images, but the Topaz AI sharpening algorithms cleaned up the images much better than PS unsharp mask could. Here are some examples. 

A photo from my former N Scale Mountain Sub layout. I used Topaz AI to sharpen it. The details, especially the red truck in the foreground, look good after processing.

This is a real blast from the past. This is a photo of the first model railroad project I built,
my former Chase Marine Terminal NTRAK module in 1991-92. I did not have a high res scan of this image, so I used Topaz AI to upsample it and to sharpen it. I did the sky replacement years ago with an early version of PS.

Photos of Falmouth

 

The editor of the newsletter of the local division of the NMRA needed some photos of my layout to announce an open house. I thought that was a good excuse to shoot some new photos of the almost finished area near Falmouth. Focus stacked and sky replaced in PS.

Topaz Photo AI - Upscaling Low Res Images

 

Full original unsharpened image.

Photographers might be interested in this, especially if you have some low res images you want to use in a print project. I was going through some of my older railfan images for use in a writing project. I found some low resolution images I took around 2001 that I would like to use. The base image was about 3.1 mega-pixels (2160 by 1440 pixels) at ISO 100 and 1/180sec. The image was not noisy, but it was low-res and a bit soft.

I put the image in Topaz Photo AI and let the software recommend improvements. It can remove noise, sharpen, and upscale. In this case it only recommended a 2x upscale. But in the process, it made the image sharper. So it doubled the resolution in both axes for an image size of 11.9 mega-pixels (4234 by 2822 pixels) and gave a sharper image. That is some black magic.

Here is a comparison of both images in Photoshop. The upper image is the original image enlarged to 200%. The bottom image is the same image after Topaz AI upscaling. Check it out.  

Original image at 200% compared to the image in Topaz Photo AI upscaled and sharpened at 2x

But wait you say, what if you just took the original image and sharpened it in Photoshop? I tried the same image using Photoshop's new neural filter Superzoom. It didn't work near as well. It did upscale the image, but it was soft. If I tried to use Photoshop smart sharpen or unsharp mask on the upscaled image, I did not get as good results as there was a lot of fringing and artifacts See the second image for the comparison.

Photoshops new neural filter Superzoom compared to Topaz Photo AI

Topaz Photo AI also works on old slide scans. It can get rid of grain and other artifacts too. You can even upscale low res images you get off the internet. It is very impressive software. 

What's up with all DeNoise?

Danica the Cyborg - rescuing a old picture with Topaz Aps

The year has started out very busy with no work on the Aquia Line but lots of other fun projects and distractions. I spent a good part of the week working on some track plans that will be published later this year. In between that I have been doing some birdwatching and learning more about how to use photoshop. 

I recently purchased the Topaz AI suite of products for photo enhancements. These products aren't that useful for model railroad photography as we can usually shoot those images in ideal condtions with low ISO. But if you are doing any action photography such as wildlife, or even fast moving trains in low light where you use high ISO,  you might be interested in the aps. I was skeptical of them at first as they use social media to advertise. But I watched enough Youtube videos to think they might be worthwhile. They allow you to freely download their products to evaluate them, you just can't save until you purchase or activate them. So I was able to give them a good test before buying. And I was very pleased to see they really work. I find that the DeNoise program is the best as it consistently gives good results. I find the sharpen function to be less in demand, but it is useful when it is needed. They also offer an all-in-one application that will analyze your image and suggest denoise, sharpen, and even upscaling.  It works well too. 

Here is an example of a high iso image that I processed thorough Topaz applications. I shot the cardinal on my Canon R7 at 3200 ISO, but after Topaz DeNoise there is practically zero noise in the image.  That is pretty amazing given the high ISO I used on a compact sensor camera. 

Old snapshot that I cleaned up with Topaz AI

The Topaz aps work best with RAW images, but they are also useful when taking older images and cleaning them up. Here is an example where I took an old snap shot of my daughter at one of her modeling shoots.  I used Topaz AI to clean it up, sharpen and upsample. 

Since she doesn't normally wear her hair and makeup like that, I decided to manipulate the photo for a new effect. She reminded me of Pris from the original Blade Runner movie. 

I used Photoshop to convert her into a cyborg warrior. This was an exercise in using many of the features in  Photoshop including layer masks, blending modes, etc. There are over 30 layers, including adjustment layers and masks.  I think it came out pretty well. My daughter suggested some weathering on the arm and vest. So she liked it too.

Money Shot - Another Expansion?

 This photo composition will be the money shot when Aquia Landing if (is- a freudian slip???) finished. The ships, and dockside detail will bring the scene to life. But there's a problem. I can't take this photo. Not with out a lot of photoshop work.

This image shows some of the trickery I have to use to digitally extend the waterfront in the foreground. I didn't leave enough room for adequate water scenery in the foreground of the railroad barge. To place the tug boat in this area requires a temporary extension that I made from some scrap lumber. I covered it with black (looks more dark gray in the image) construction paper. 

With the image in Photoshop I added water to the foreground using an actual photo of the Potomac that I took before. That also meant I had to create the reflections of the tug and wharf in the water. It's a time consuming task. It would be much easier if there was water in that area in the actual model. 

To extend the water, I would have to build an extension of the fascia, build a new flat area to fit and then pour resin to fill in. It's doable.

So then, why stop there? What not extend it by a 12-18 inches and make room for even more ships? The mind boggles.

BTW here is a B&W antiqued version of the image as requested by John Drye.

The Aquia Line Graphic Novel

 

Playing around with Photoshop. This was a great exercise in smart objects, layer masks and compositing.  In the past I would use Photoshop for the graphics and Illustrator for the layout, but this image was done completely in Photoshop. 

This is not the first time I tried doing a graphic novel. I did an eight page chapter for my brother's book, Nation's Fortress, about our family in America's wars from the Revolution to the Cold War. The graphic novel chapter was about our grandfather's experience in WW1.  Here is a sample page from that chapter. The rest of the book is regular text. However, each chapter has a different format. For example, the chapter on the civil war is told through letters to home. I wrote that chapter for the book. If you are interested in the book you can get a copy at this link