PhotoShopping?

[Michael Martin]

Just out of curiosity, how many of you PhotoShop your pictures before posting? I cannot tell a lie - I do! If it needs contrast, lighting etc, I'll do it to make the picture look better. I've lately gotten into getting rid of object that detract from the picture! Orange cones, porta-potties, even people!

I'm in the process of getting ready to post about a hundred pictures in the next few days, and I'm going to try and remember to post a "before" & "after" picture.
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[Bluedharma]

Hi Michael,
I do crop many of my pictures that I take. But I haven't used any Photoshop on airport-data.com yet. I do use the Photoshop for those pictures that I prep to print.

Then again, I guess it depends on what you mean by Photoshop. Now to be totally honest... I do use picasa to store...(lighten,sharpen...so forth as well as crop) so I guess I do manipulate the shots a bit.

My camera does only so well, and I need all the help I can get sometimes.

Regards,

BlueDharma
http://www.airport-data.com/photographers/Bluedharma;1045/

[John Little]

Hi Mike - Paul,

I actually did not own Photoshop until a couple of weeks ago, and so a lot of my previous posts were just as they were shot.

Certainly between shots I made a lot of changes with the camera settings, and the like, and my pictures varied quite a bit. The change to the D200 has even more variety, because I am shooting almost completely Manual, and I like the way the camera works in that mode.

Now that I have Photoshop, I will need to elarn the program because there is a lot to it.

Like Paul, I will certainly use it for printing purposes. Otherwise for web pictures, and posting on the airport-data.com site, I am not sure anyone would really notice things because of the size of the picture file imposed (not a complaint Ken, you do have to pcik a size limit or you would have to charge us for the larger servers and storage space......<g>

John L

[Airport-Data]

[Michael Martin]

MicroCenter has .5 TB (TerraByte) hard drives for less than $130 US!
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[Timothy Aanerud]

[Airport-Data]

That's a very good job Timothy. I barely see any trace on the ground.

[Guy Pambrun]

I post process some shots just to smarten them up a bit. I prefer to take my shots of the planes in the air at at times a hydro pole and their annoying wires get in the way. I also use it to adjust brightness / contrast and / or sharpen them up a touch if needed.

My program of choice is Corel PSP XI because it's a fraction of the cost of Photoshop and has the ability to do many of the same things.

[Michael Martin]

Here is a sample of what PhotShoppe can do to a picture:

N454QS
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[Brad Campbell]

I would like to think that any 'tool', (like photoshop but could be referring to myself also!) would be encouraged in almost any form of photography to improve a photo. I use Adobe Photoshop 6 but mostly limit my 'edit' to crop, resize, adjust levels, shadows/highlights, and sometimes hue/saturation or brightness/contrast. I usually make two layers: the first with unsharp mask and another with varying numbers of unsharp mask again. Very rarely, I'll use a dodge or burn tool and most of the time I use selective sharpening along the body and lines/markings of the aircraft.

On a side note: my computer crashed about a month ago. Luckily, I saw it coming and dumped all my stuff on an external hard-drive - whew! The new computer I got used the new Windows Vista instead of Windows XP. And guess what? The version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 is not compatible and did NOT work on Vista. I had to purchase the latest version of Elements.
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Take care,
Brad

[Brad Campbell]

I'd like to say something not specifically about 'photoshopping' but in regards to editing photos - mine included.

Ken has been very liberal with what he accepts and what gets discarded. I know I have a few that are probably questionable and substandard. I also know that ones skills improve over time. I'd hate to think of this site as a 'dumping ground' or 'storage' area for aviation photos.

I know some people are opposed to photoshopping a picture - some think it should be all about the camera. I can see their point. But, the ONE THING that I really wish we would all try to watch out for is UNLEVEL HORIZONS. Especially the extreme ones - I've seen more then a few thoughout the site.

Now this is just my 'gripe' and I'm not working in cahoots with anybody, but I think it would be really nice if we could all go through our files and fix the photos that have grossly exaggerated horizons if possible. I think it would be one way to improve the quality the site that Ken has so graciously let us use - for free! With NO limits on uploads and even though he asks, photographic quality. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, and I'm sure most of us have been there - check out Airliners.net and JetPhotos.net. Then you'll see how lucky we are to have a site like Airport-Data.com!

Ok, I'll get off the soap-box. Thanks for your time...
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Take care,
Brad

[Dean Heald]

I agree with Brad. Some attempt to make the horizon level or verticals vertical should be made. Actually, you should level your photos by making a true vertical item such as a building edge vertical. Don't rely heavily on light poles, because they are often not truly vertical.

Dean

[Ztex]

I agree with the, "use the tools you have at hand" rule.

I PS almost every photo to some extent. Whether it is to crop or straighten the horizon (I seem to have a 2 degree list to the right most of the time ) or to make some adjustment to the lighting.

As my dad always told me...only show your best photos and everyone will think you are a good photographer..

I also am scanning a lot of older prints and they require some touch up because of fading or dust and scratches. Plus quite a few have a label placed on the face of the photo in the past...

A little quick processing makes a photo presentable...Although my PS skills are quite rudimentary, it seems to work out.

Example.
Before


After