Spanner at the museum, C&C please

[BastiaanImages]

Spent the afternoon at the Dutch National Railway Museum in Utrecht. As soon as I saw this spanner I knew it could make for a great picture. Made both a colour & b/w version. I know the shot isn't perfect but I like the DoF. Curious about your opinions.
Colour:

Railway spanner by BastiaanImages, on Flickr
B/W:

Railway spanner B/W by BastiaanImages, on Flickr

 

[tirediron]

I like the image, and I prefer the monochrome, but I would suggest cropping some off of the top, enough so that there is no white sky visible, just the top of the carriage (bright attracts the eye) and I would also try and brighten the wrench itself a little, say, using the dodge tool.

 

[RichardsTPF]

Maybe it's my monitor. Is it little bit underexposed?

 

[bazooka]

Overall, I like it. Your composition makes that sucker look HUGE. It's very sharp as well.

I think I like the color version better... the red of the train, the red barrel, and the red bricks seem to pull together to make the wrench pop. It is a bit dark but I wouldn't lighten it up too much.

 

[Dillard]

I like it. While i love the detail on the wrench, I like the black and white better

 

[marmots]

can i try to redo the black and white conversion?

i think i could make it a little less dull

 

[BastiaanImages]

can i try to redo the black and white conversion?

i think i could make it a little less dull

Off course, on flickr you'll find it at a pretty high resolution.

 

[marmots]

here

 

[BastiaanImages]

I like it thanks, can you describe (shortly) what you did?

 

[marmots]

this is something i got from someone else on the forum, i forget who

Image>mode>Lab color
Image>mode>greyscale
Hold down control key click on grey channel
Select>invert to shadows
image>mode>rgb color
Layer pallete.solid color
Change blending mode to multiply
Control-alt-shift-E
Change blending mode of new layer to overlay
set opacity 20%
Filter>other>high pass filter>radius 50%
Flatten

after all of that you need to do a curves adjustment with the same selection, and drag the mid-tones up a bit
then a levels adjustment until you like it

edit:
i forgot i also did an add noise filter to the layer mask of the final curves layer, and then blurred it a bit, in an attempt to get a film grain kind of look

 

[JH100]

I like this shot very much and IMHO, I think it works better in B/W. My eye is pulled more to the bright colors in the background and it competes with the spanner.

 

[BastiaanImages]

this is something i got from someone else on the forum, i forget who

Image>mode>Lab color
Image>mode>greyscale
Hold down control key click on grey channel
Select>invert to shadows
image>mode>rgb color
Layer pallete.solid color
Change blending mode to multiply
Control-alt-shift-E
Change blending mode of new layer to overlay
set opacity 20%
Filter>other>high pass filter>radius 50%
Flatten

after all of that you need to do a curves adjustment with the same selection, and drag the mid-tones up a bit
then a levels adjustment until you like it

edit:
i forgot i also did an add noise filter to the layer mask of the final curves layer, and then blurred it a bit, in an attempt to get a film grain kind of look

Thanks for the tip, will try something like that in the future!

 

[AfroKen]

Maybe it's my monitor. Is it little bit underexposed?

It looks underexposed on my monitor as well.