Sunny - Prescreening Request / Editing Advice

[Sunny_Lee]

not screener, looks bit dark

Thank you Charlie, I'll continue to work on its brightness. Feels pretty hard to manage it in nightshots sometimes tho.

[dlowwa]

Ohh no problems, what about now sir? Is the brightness okay?
(The histogram still shows huge amounts of darks/shadows, but it's really hard to balance it considering the spotting condition , so I increased the overall exposure and shadows and adjusted the highlight specifically to avoid blooming)

Looks like you're starting to play with the shadows a bit, so contrast/processing might become an issue.

[Sunny_Lee]

Looks like you're starting to play with the shadows a bit, so contrast/processing might become an issue.

Ohh indeed! So I processed this again (on the basis of the very first version), and darkened its shadow part while increasing the overall brightness. The photo itself seems to be okay (I presume), but there are again some bandings appearing in the sky part of the Check For Dust image... But I guess these bandings actually result from the transition from the bright light to the dark sky, which is pretty hard to avoid in night shots sometimes and I really dunno how to fix it this time Is this acceptable (or will it be acceptable if I just use the very first version that's a bit dark)?
Thank you soooo much for your patience!

[787Dream]

Ohh indeed! So I processed this again (on the basis of the very first version), and darkened its shadow part while increasing the overall brightness. The photo itself seems to be okay (I presume), but there are again some bandings appearing in the sky part of the Check For Dust image... But I guess these bandings actually result from the transition from the bright light to the dark sky, which is pretty hard to avoid in night shots sometimes and I really dunno how to fix it this time Is this acceptable (or will it be acceptable if I just use the very first version that's a bit dark)?
Thank you soooo much for your patience!

I think when Dana says contrast/processing, it means you changed contrast towards a bad direction.
I can see your shadows are clipped on this trial. So you need fewer shadows, which can be changed by moving the midtone slide a bit to the left in the leveling option (so you can add more luminosity on your highlight side and expand your very dense shadowy part).
How's this looking? Brighter? And looks like shadows are recovered, image is brightened. Now I feel it is a stunning shot (that's some self-boasting in there lol).

I am not a master of night shots and certainly do not get a lot of chances to shoot in spots like this, but hope my thoughts work for you.

[dlowwa]

Ohh indeed! So I processed this again (on the basis of the very first version), and darkened its shadow part while increasing the overall brightness. The photo itself seems to be okay (I presume), but there are again some bandings appearing in the sky part of the Check For Dust image... But I guess these bandings actually result from the transition from the bright light to the dark sky, which is pretty hard to avoid in night shots sometimes and I really dunno how to fix it this time Is this acceptable (or will it be acceptable if I just use the very first version that's a bit dark)?

Looks better, would be ok for me.

I think when Dana says contrast/processing, it means you changed contrast towards a bad direction.
I can see your shadows are clipped on this trial. So you need fewer shadows

This is incorrect. Weaker than expected shadows usually means overprocessed.

[Sunny_Lee]

Looks better, would be ok for me.

Alright! Thank you so much Mr. Dana!

[Sunny_Lee]

I think when Dana says contrast/processing, it means you changed contrast towards a bad direction.
I can see your shadows are clipped on this trial. So you need fewer shadows, which can be changed by moving the midtone slide a bit to the left in the leveling option (so you can add more luminosity on your highlight side and expand your very dense shadowy part).
How's this looking? Brighter? And looks like shadows are recovered, image is brightened. Now I feel it is a stunning shot (that's some self-boasting in there lol).

I am not a master of night shots and certainly do not get a lot of chances to shoot in spots like this, but hope my thoughts work for you.

Hi 787Dream! Thank you for the thorough explanation and for providing me with a new approach to brightening images! I think we only had a small misunderstanding at the beginning - Mr. Dana intended to remind me not to raise the luminosity of the shadow part too much when he mentioned contrast/processing issues. Because changing shadows/highlights usually cause the visible bad/over-processed signs that could be seen in the Check For Dust image (such as halos and bandings, and that's also why we Nikon users usually don't use D-Lighting when planespotting lol). Furthermore, considering this photo was taken handheld with a (relatively) high ISO, doing so may make the photo more noisy and grainy and therefore reduce the overall image quality (and that's also the reason why I tried so hard several times to find a proper way of brightening it while keeping the details as much as I can).
But this is indeed a great method of recovering shadows and I'll def try it in the future, thank you!

[Sunny_Lee]

Hi sir, could you please offer me some suggestions on this photo? Thank you.

[dlowwa]

Hi sir, could you please offer me some suggestions on this photo?

Very minor issues with oversharpening/overprocessed, but would be ok for me.

[Sunny_Lee]

Very minor issues with oversharpening/overprocessed, but would be ok for me.

Thank you sir!
Could you please pre-screen these photos for me? For some reason the top left corner of these images is always dimmer, idk if that's acceptable or would be considered vignetting.
Also, they somehow look weird when I check the equalized images. Tysm!

[dlowwa]

Thank you sir!
Could you please pre-screen these photos for me? For some reason the top left corner of these images is always dimmer, idk if that's acceptable or would be considered vignetting.
Also, they somehow look weird when I check the equalized images.

Borderline dark/soft, and yes vignetting on those that have the dark corner(s).

[Sunny_Lee]

Borderline dark/soft, and yes vignetting on those that have the dark corner(s).

Thank you sir! But for these photos, although the sky does look darker on the top left side, they don't really look like corners but more like the whole side is dimmer (like the second and third CFD I attached here) So I was wondering if there's any chance of getting accepted lol
I also applied lens correction once again on the 787 shot, but now from CFD the corners look brighter than usual. Will that still get rejected for vignetting?
Sorry for being this verbose but ty for the advice!

[dlowwa]

Thank you sir! But for these photos, although the sky does look darker on the top left side, they don't really look like corners but more like the whole side is dimmer (like the second and third CFD I attached here) So I was wondering if there's any chance of getting accepted lol
I also applied lens correction once again on the 787 shot, but now from CFD the corners look brighter than usual. Will that still get rejected for vignetting?
Sorry for being this verbose but ty for the advice!

Definitely some poor vignetting correction in those. The ones dark on just one side may or may not have an issue.

[Sunny_Lee]

Definitely some poor vignetting correction in those. The ones dark on just one side may or may not have an issue.

Thank you sir! I'll see what I can do to fix it.

[Sunny_Lee]

Definitely some poor vignetting correction in those. The ones dark on just one side may or may not have an issue.

Sir, could you please kindly check these for me?
For the first photo, I compressed it to 1600px, but idk if it's acceptable since there's still to some extent heat distortion. Should I export it to 1280px or even 1024px?
And as for the second photo, is the quality acceptable? I'm especially worried about its Check For Dust image and if there's any vignetting.
(The second photo might look dimmer becuz it was already around 5pm, so the light condition isn't that good)