Bad contrast

[Geoffrey]

I need help with this one:
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewreject.php?id=95297
It says bad contrast. How can I deal with it? Personally I like this shot.

And these for bad cropping again (..)
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewreject.php?id=95284
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewreject.php?id=95268
Are they just not cropped tight enough?

By the way, do you suggest to use matrix focus or brackets?
It is sometimes hard to use high arpeture settings in dark conditions to keep both nose and tail in focus.
Thanks.

[atco]

Hello Geoffrey,

With the contrast problem, the easiest way is simply to not shoot in overcast conditions.

However, the curves feature of photoshop will help you out here. It allows you to alter light and dark points and you can achieve quite a lot with it.

In this case I have used curves to try to lessen the harshness of the contrast, then run the image through neat image to reduce the grain and finally use a pass of USM at 150%, 0.2, 0

I also cropped better to achieve more impact.



The other two are definately bad crops. You must crop tighter to achieve the closeup look. We are seeing a lot of images recently that are neither closeup nor profile shots.
I have recropped these and again used neat image to kill of the grain, on the Cathay I applied a sweep of USM and changed the levels slightly too.




Hope this has been useful

Garry

[Geoffrey]

Thanks Garry. That is of course useful!
I've just knew this software Neatimage but I am extremely unfamiliar with it and I can't find the correct settings! Any help?