Your thoughts on this ?

[brianw999]

Nice explanation there Brian. However, I believe that these artefacts on the treeline become visible when your magic wand tool is not used properly. Something I've seen many times when editing my photos. What I'd try in that case is adding that part of the treeline to the area previously selected with the magic wand tool when adjusting brightness/contrast of the sky.

Interesting point. When I processed the pic I adjusted levels, set mid grey on the upper fuselage, made a background layer and then adjusted the curves for exposure of the aircraft and adjusted sharpness and contrast. I then used the magic wand to select and delete the now almost completely blown out sky and included the treeline in order to reveal the originally better exposed sky, even though it was rather dull and cloudy. I personally feel that this makes for a better balanced picture.
A point to note is that the greyer, upper treeline is in fact about 1 mile further back from the lower treeline, being the upper edge of the far side of a valley to the background. For those who know the area, the valley has the M2 motorway running through it to the rear of the airfield as seen from this view.

Now then. I now realise that I may possibly be inadvertently committing the sin of Digital Manipulation here. Your comments, especially those of screeners would be appreciated. If it is Digital Manipulation then I will, of course, go back to the brighter but more blown out sky.

Further comments appreciated.

[LX-A343]

Brian, this photo is an interesting shot to work on. Could you upload the original somewhere, so that others ( i.e. me ) may have a look at it?

[brianw999]

Brian, this photo is an interesting shot to work on. Could you upload the original somewhere, so that others ( i.e. me ) may have a look at it?

Certainly will. The original is a Nikon RAW file. Will that display OK here or should I convert to .jpg ?

I'm at work and won't get home until 2300 tonight. I'll try to upload then.
Actually, I don't think ImageShack will allow such a large file. Any ideas on how to upload it ?

[wwshack]

If it was shot in RAW you could do a dual conversion on it, one for the sky and one for the aircraft.
You may even be able to do a dual on a JPEG although I have never tried it.

[brianw999]

As requested, this is the original. It has had to be resized to 1600x1024 and converted to .jpg as Imageshack couldn't handle a file much bigger.

[jid]

Hi there Brian, well as said this is a tricky shot to process. This is one of the cases where some manipulation with the RAW image before you start sharpening would be of value. Anyway I have had a little go at your original image, selectively adding contrast to only the dark areas with the following result.



In my defence this was done at work and is not the monitor I would use for screening

Good luck .. Jid

[wwshack]

The version that I came up with is full or artifacts so this is that I done.
Cropped it to 1024 to keep the noise to a minimum.
Levels - Used the white dropper on the more greyer of the white checker board squares. I set the black point by holding down the alt key and adjusting the black point slider until the blacks just broke through.
Curves, lifted the black mid-tones and left the white tones as they were.
Sharpening, used a selective sharpening technique, (155/ 0.3/0) at an opacity of 50% cutting back the sharpening on the belly tank bands and the leading edge of the tail fin and tail flash. Doing next to no sharpening in the shadow areas under the wing.

Taking a cold, hard look at the image, it would probably be better to go back and re-shoot the photo under better conditions. The colours seem to be off and the histogram suggests that it is under exposed.

Going way out on a limb and giving it a period look.....

[wwshack]

Well done Brian, I see that you got there in the end.

[brianw999]

Thanks to all here for their help and advice. Pic accepted.

Trouble is, now I want to go out and do it again in sunlight.

[LX-A343]

Looks good [photoid=5906268] Congrats!

[uy707]

Interesting aircraft restored in period Cold War colors in use for interceptors
Nice angle illustrating the quality of preservation and display on these poles which isolate the tyres and what's up above from direct earth humidity.
Good to see it accepted
Congrats
Alain