This gallery is a result of several coincidences:

• A new camera - the Leica D-LUX 2 - that I bought just before Christmas - if I don't buy myself presents, no-one else
  will. I was attracted by the wide format (16 x 9 3840 x 2160 pixels), the image stabilisation, the option to shoot raw and the brand. Since then the weather has been so dismal, I've hardly had the chance to use it in decent light. I took the camera with me on my last trip to Cologne a couple of weeks ago, and the weather was much the same there, but I did decide to wander round in the evenings - none of the rest of the team were in town - just to have a play. I didn't expect much from the images; I was using ISO 400 and about the only bad thing I'd read about the D-LUX2 was noise at higher ISO.
• Watermark Variations CS2: I wanted to test the new script on new images that hadn't been processed to see what problems I found in a real workflow (got an idea for a small subroutine to maintain colour profile when inside WVCS2). I'd shot in raw in Cologne and just downloaded the files to my PC. I used Adobe Camera Raw to convert (as recommended by Leica, no proprietary converter is provided).
• A new version of the Power Retouche plug-in: I'd done a review a while back and the developer, Jan Esmann, had sent me the latest version to check over (also a while back, guilty cough). As expected there was a lot of noise in the pictures, but playing around in Camera Raw to see what I could fix I discovered that the pictures looked quite interesting in black and white. B+W Variations and Tones Variations not yet having been updated to Photoshop CS2, I played around with the Power Retouche plug-ins Black & White Studio and Toned Photos. I don't know that many of the images will look great in print, but I was rather taken with the result in web-sized images. Both the plug-ins are pretty cool (though without the advantage of Variations scripts to compare different results side-by-side).
• Photoshop Web Gallery: while I was working on the new Watermark Variations and checking the automate options, I spotted the Web Gallery option on the File>Automate menu - "Never played with that", I thought, "Let's give it a try." Fiddled around a bit, chose a flash gallery option, tweaked the options and voilà! Very simple and pretty flash.

So there you are a serendipitous collection of activities that has resulted in this gallery. I can't pretend these are really great photos, but the moody look and feel appeals to me. I hope you enjoy them too. Click the link below, but be aware that Flash and JavaScript are used.

The Dom - Cologne At Night