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72_chevy_truck Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #1 · Beautiful Skys I am ready for another beating on critique. Let me know what I can do better I learned on this shot that I need to pay attention to details. The details like stopping down the lens to prevent the stopping of the propeller. I went down to ISO 100 and had my aperature at f/5.6. I think f/8 would have slowed the shutter enough to keep the prop motion blurred. I metered off the blue sky off the side of the sun (kept it out of the frame). I had one chance at the shot as the plane flew by at around 130 mph. Edited on Feb 18, 2010 at 12:20 AM · View previous versions Feb 17, 2010 at 09:45 PM

AuntiPode Offline Dedicated FM Upload & Sell: On p.1 #2 · Beautiful Skys As a suggestion, try masking the plane and applying blur to the sky to make it a creamier blue a try cropping a *little* from the left and top. Feb 17, 2010 at 10:35 PM

72_chevy_truck Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #3 · Beautiful Skys How is that? I barely notice a difference... When I did more blur, it trailed the yellow on the wings into the blue sky Feb 17, 2010 at 10:57 PM

sbeme Offline Dedicated FM Upload & Sell: On p.1 #4 · Beautiful Skys Gee, I hope you didnt really feel beat up. Anyhow, I think there are several things to improve this colorful capture. First, I agree with AuntiPode about reducing the noise in the blues. You should not get any trailing of the yellows if you mask the plane carefully. Not sure what technique you used, but if you blurred the image, then painted a mask with black to reveal the plane, you might need a hard edged brush. Second, I think the plane needs to be sharpened. After noise reduction to prevent further artifacts. Few options on cropping, but essentially you want a more dynamic composition. This can be achieved by making the plane a bit less centered and flying either into or out of the frame. What this means is placing the plane with space more in front than behind, and either more above or below. You might try rotating the image a bit clockwise before cropping as Auntipode suggested. The plane will then look like it is descending more or banking harder, adding to the dynamism already captured. Scott Edited on Feb 19, 2010 at 07:38 AM · View previous versions Feb 18, 2010 at 12:24 AM

72_chevy_truck Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #5 · Beautiful Skys Naw, I don't feel beat up. I want to get better so I appreciate any comments I can get. I have very little experience with pp so I may have to fiddle with it for a bit. I can't afford photoshop, so I am using gimp instead. Feb 18, 2010 at 12:34 AM

sbeme Offline Dedicated FM Upload & Sell: On p.1 #6 · Beautiful Skys Lyle may chime in. He's a gimp expert. Photoshop Elements or LR will get you pretty far and Elements can usually be had for under $100 or comes free sometimes bundled with scanners, if you know someone. Scott Feb 18, 2010 at 12:55 AM

72_chevy_truck Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #7 · Beautiful Skys Took a little more time selecting the plane, lowered the blur amount, and sharpened a bit. It is a little glowy around the edges though... Maybe I went too far with the blur? Feb 18, 2010 at 01:00 AM

sbeme Offline Dedicated FM Upload & Sell: On p.1 #8 · Beautiful Skys The problem isnt the blur, its the masking to prevent if from blurring the plane. Why dont you PM lylejk for advice on processing in gimp? Scott Feb 18, 2010 at 01:14 AM

lylejk Offline Dedicated FM Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #9 · Beautiful Skys OK; did get your PM and thought I would try. I will start by saying that GIMP Forground/Background extractor sucks. Luckily, GLM Matting (a PS filter) will work in GIMP (you have to install PSPI in order to use PS compatible filters; even so, not all PS compatible filters will work in GIMP). The sky way way too plain, so grabbed one from the Free Photo Index (see ref. below) and I also added some ACE (Adaptive Contrast Enhancement) blend to the extracted plain (ACE is a cool filter; PC hosts it right now on his site). May have botched the Radial blur for the propeller (perfect I'm not; lol). Should you need GIMP help, the guys at GIMPTalk (I hang out there a lot too) will be more then willing to help you too. Also, click here for some Photo specific GIMP tuts (he's updating his site right now, so it may be a little buggy). Ref: http://www.fontplay.com/freephotosold/sixteen/fp102709-07.jpg Feb 18, 2010 at 04:25 AM

AuntiPode Offline Dedicated FM Upload & Sell: On p.1 #10 · Beautiful Skys What's the masking width? For an image such as this, you'll want a very small width, such as 1 pixel or you'll need to place the mask slightly away from the actual edge of the plane. I'm unfamiliar with gimp, but if it has an equivalent to the blur tool or the smudge tool in PS, that's another way to remove or reduce the noise from the sky if you are having problems with masking. Feb 18, 2010 at 04:37 AM

lylejk Offline Dedicated FM Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #11 · Beautiful Skys Just noticed a few grammatical errors and misspellings in my last post. Sorry about that. should have been GML Matting not GLM. lol Not sure if you are referring to my extract Aunti (seems to look good to me). GML Matting really excels with extraction and that's pretty much what I used (except I did make a few selective erasing and things too tidy it up some). Feb 18, 2010 at 04:49 AM

AuntiPode Offline Dedicated FM Upload & Sell: On p.1 #12 · Beautiful Skys Lyle, I was editing my response when you posted yours. I didn't see yours until mine posted and was referring to 72_chevy_truck's complaints about his masked version. Feb 18, 2010 at 06:13 AM

lylejk Offline Dedicated FM Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #13 · Beautiful Skys I do see some noise left over from GML after seeing your post (looked a little closer). Still, it did a better job then I could do (masking/knockouts are my biggest weakness unfortunatly, mainly since I'm lazy; lol). Feb 18, 2010 at 06:24 AM

72_chevy_truck Offline Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #14 · Beautiful Skys Thanks for all the tips. I will have to spend some time learning some pp. From what I am reading, the photo itself (aside from pp) was okay. I know I could have made it better with a little more lens range and a different aperature setting to keep the prop moving. Thanks again. oh wow... I also need to learn to spell... skys... what was I thinking? Feb 18, 2010 at 01:07 PM

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