Correcting airliner aerials

Here's an example (western Greenland in October from 37000' slightly north of Godthaab):



I slogged through most of the controls in Lightroom's beta 4 (temp raised to 7000, strong contrast, tint +25 or so, tilted 3 degrees left, some further darkening of shadows, lightening of highlights, and a few more sliders that I have now forgotten), then shipped to PSCS1 for editing, finally saved it as a JPG, then resized and sharpened slightly in IrfanView. I'm sure there could be a more pleasing result, and probably a much quicker path. I'm happy to make the .dng original raw file available at www.cs.huji.ac.il/~kirk/testfiles/RIMG0614.DNG to anyone who can do it differently.

Historical note -- airlifting bombers to Britain in WWII, one flew low over the icebergs to Greenland from Goose Bay or Gander, homed in on a radio beacon at the coast, and then made a fast decision which of three fjords to enter (that is, if all three were visible). The middle one was the correct one, and "Bluie West One," now Godthaab, lay 20 miles or so further east, just before the ice fields begin. There was no exit from the two wrong fjords. I think this is the northern wrong fjord. It all looks simple from 37000'.

scott

slight update

I replaced the earlier version of this shot with a new copy, less green, better contrast. Mostly the result of redoing it with a better monitor to look at.

scott

Scott,

I take so many pictures from the sky and don't often get to work on them. This is interesting and you have motivated me! Maybe we'll get some other contributions!

Asher

let's see that dng

never mind I found it ;-)

OK here is my try, I think you over warmed the colour temperature. I bumped the contrast and cropped and did a couple other things too. Here it is!

Nice colors. I kept the sky in mine because I liked the Hokusai effect at the very top. But the bottom of the cloud layer is curved, which made me spend time trying to straighten it before realizing that the camera was actually level... so that is a distraction. I'd love to actually go to Greenland someday, or Iceland.

scott

scott kirkpatrick said:

..I kept the sky in mine because I liked the Hokusai effect at the very top. ...

Click to expand...

Hi Scott,

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a "Hokusai effect"?. I seached the web and came up with a very famous Japanese artist from the 18th & 19th century who designed prints, illustrations, books, etc. Were you referring to a particular style aspect to be found in his works?

Regards,

Cem

Cem Usakligil said:

Hi Scott,

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a "Hokusai effect"?. I seached the web and came up with a very famous Japanese artist from the 18th & 19th century who designed prints, illustrations, books, etc. Were you referring to a particular style aspect to be found in his works?

Click to expand...

Exactly - in particular his 36 Views of Mount Fuji almost all use this effect.



- DL

Thanks Don for clearing that up for me and for the nice link .

Cheers,

Cem

Don Lashier said:

Exactly - in particular his 36 Views of Mount Fuji almost all use this effect.
- DL

Click to expand...

That's a nice link. Thanks.

The graduated blue bar at the top is almost a cliche, used in most of the japanese woodblocks by artics since Hokusai, but I still like it.

scott