Taxi!

This was a fun shot I took from the train platform on my way home last week.  It's a view of 125th Street in Manhattan facing east towards Long Island.  I wanted to do one of those effects where there is just one spot of color in the photo, and I thought the yellow cab headed down Lexington would be the perfect spot of color for this rush-hour scene.

Total Time: 30 minutes

I used Photoshop.  In image mode, I changed the color to grayscale.  I selected duo-tone and set the tri-tone option to 2 greens.  I cut the taxi out and placed it in a new layer, selected RGB and changed it to that NYC taxi yellow.  Just to conserve download time, I saved it sized for the web.

Here's the original.

I think everything gets all jammed together in the original shot.  Since the yellow taxi in the foreground is so bright, you don't really see the bridge at the end of the horizon.  It feels rather claustrophobic with everything crushed together and the bug bus and truck so near.

When I washed out the color, it gentles the whole picture and lets your eye move around to see all of the pieces.  So much calmer that way.

Please note the bus in the lower right-hand corner - that's not my bus.  Nope, my bus is still about 5 blocks away.  I had to get off and run for it.