Shot in good light and properly exposed at ISO1600. Exposure dropped to -1.20 during RAW conversion -- creating a dark but still properly exposed image. Noise was subsequently "forced" by using Shadow/Highlights adjustment in PS CS3 (shadows adjustment cranked) when bringing back shadow detail during post processing.
Additional post processing included:
Selective Color adjustment layer - Blacks +3%
Hue/Saturation adjustment layer - +20% (Master)
Channel Mixer adjustment layer for B&W converstion; layer set to 75% opacity for the muted/desat tones
Smart Sharpen - 215% @ 2.3 radius (enhancing the noise factor)
Curves adjustment layer to boost contrast
Resize and covert to 8-bit sRGB
Added a slight bit more grain using Artistic --> Film Grain, though it only needed the filter *after* resize; full-res has plenty o' grain naturally.
Selective Color adjustment layer - Neutral, Black +10% and Black, Black +3% (regain some contrast offset by Film Grain)
Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer - +20% contrast
Statistics
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Interesting speedometer. Your grain adds a "dirty" feel here, I like it. So many entries for this challenge are adding noise that doesn't benefit the picture. Not so in this case!
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