some edit practice

[Craig.]

Well in preparation for my trip to the Mac loop in Wales, and the almost certain bad weather that will come with it. I have been working on my edits to improve shots. I started with some old Yeovil shots. I dont think i have posted these, if so sorry for the repeats.
Compaired to the old these are all much better quality, brighter sharper and a bit more colour. Still crap but better crap

Quickly becoming a personal favourate.

Doug?

[Hagar]

Ah. That's a great improvement.

I wouldn't call it editing. More like post-processing.

[TacitBlue]

Yeah, it's not editing, it's improving'. I think they are good, I like the little red plane.

[Craig.]

Thanks guys.
But trust me, what i did with these was a little past post-processing

[HawkerTempest5]

I'll end up sending you all mine to touch up a bit at this rate
Nice, the Sea Fury looks fantastic. Great plane, great shot.

[Mr. Bones]

Can't remember the originals, but I'm sure these look better.
With a DSLR, you really have to post-process...no matter what lens you use. Even with a

[Craig.]

I personally use PSP7. I cant afford photoshop and i always found elements alot trickier than PSP.

[TacitBlue]

Ok, I'm a little confused now, I though PSP was photo shop.

[Hagar]

PSP is the usual way of referring to Paint Shop Pro. I find it's not so much the graphics editor as knowing how to use it. Surprising what can be done with IrfanView if you know how.

[Mr. Bones]

And it takes practice indeed. Just got an e-mail from airliners.net. All the photos taken during my latest RIAT adventure, are rejected. The reason? Low quality. This makes me mad. There are many better photos, but on the other hand, this they do accept: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/885129/L/  Why not mine?  >:(

[Craig.]

I guess with an airshow like Fairford they will be getting in hundreds if not thousands of trys from the shows. You might just have been unlucky to be at the back of the queue. I must admit a number you posted were certainly worthy of anet. I now take the thought. If they want a picture then ok, but if not i dont care, it doesnt make me any money to be on there and just doesnt have any benifit of being on there. You see some on there complaining a picture has been used on someones personal website and in most cases they have left the tag on there and are not making any money from it. These photographers go on a rant threatening legal action and so on. Personally i would take it as a compliment if i found someone using my picture on a website, as long as they arnt benifiting financially i dont care. It would be nice to get the named credit aswell but its not a huge thing.
In the end the only opinions that matter are those of my friends here and my own.

[Hagar]

Could also be the "halo factor". It's well known in competition circles that some people can do no wrong.

So what is Anet anyway & what qualifications do these people have to set themselves up to judge others work? It might be different if they gave specific reasons for rejecting photos. Maybe give a little constructive criticism to help do better next time.

I know one thing. It's no use me submitting any of my photos even if I wanted to, which I don't. I take my photos for my own pleasure. If other people think they're worth looking at or using for anything they wish except profit I'm delighted.

If it's any consolation Bones I think your photos are excellent.

[JRoc]

Craig, what quality settings are you shooting at?  I find myself shooting as RAW most of the time unless I know I'm going to be taking lots of photos. Then I'd use Large/Fine.

My post-processing usually goes like this:

• If image is RAW, open with FVU. I often find it necessary to adjust colour temperature or exposure if I'm using a small aperture lens.  Most other options I usually leave until I hit it up with Photoshop.
• Photoshop time.  Initially the first thing I'll do is try the Auto Lighting, Contrast and Colour Correction presets to see if it'll come close to the desired effect.  Sometimes that's all a photo will need.
• A touch of fill flash if necessary (even just a touch of it can really bring out the detail), colour tweaks and brightness/contrast and levels adjusting.

[Craig.]

I use large fine myself. I dont have a big enough memory card and no portable drive for shooting RAW at airshows.

Ken, looking through the Anet photos of Fairford, you didnt really stand a good chance of getting in, it seems the usual, pleanty of photos but from only a couple of regulars was inforce for acceptances. :-/