Thanks Brian, it was a little freaky that I had a shot so similar

It’s funny, the technique I used was actually learned from Jake Garn, but he uses it for portraits sometimes. Just goes to show that a technique intended for one type of photo can certainly be applied to other types too. Here’s another one I used this technique with. In fact, I like using it so much that I made a Photoshop action out of it so I can quickly check photos to see if there’s any potential with it

One trick I use to pull out extreme textures is to copy/merge all the layers into a single layer (ALT+CTRL+Shift+E). I then apply a high pass filter (using a radius setting of ten or more). Change the layer’s blending mode to Hard Light or Soft Light (depending on how extreme you want to go). You can take it a step further by selectively painting in this affect using a layer mask (so that it only affects the areas of texture). You can duplicate this new layer to make the affect more extreme.

Another fun way to tone down the saturation is to duplicate/merge all the layers (as I mentioned above) and apply a High Pass filter of ten or so. Then change the blending mode to Color. This should remove the color from the layer. Now back down the opacity to 20% or so to let just a hint of the layer show through.

Your series of images of the truck headlight look wonderful. Keep up the great work