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Blue skies?

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ChrisCwmbran
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Location: South Wales

Blue skies?

Post by ChrisCwmbran » Tue Jul 23, 2019 12:35 pm

Hi all,

From taking photos yesterday in Fairford I have some nice (or at least I think so) clear shots of jets taking off but the sky is basically just plain grey.

Does anyone ever replace or alter the background in Photoshop or Lightroom etc? Is it best just to leave the sky as it is?

Thanks in advance,

Chris.

ghostwave525
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Re: Blue skies?

Post by ghostwave525 » Tue Jul 23, 2019 12:52 pm

it depends, for me i like my pictures to be as close to the actual picture as possible because if it doesn't then i feel like it isn't mine also if your planning on posting to jp or a.net then you can't manipulate the picture or it will result in a ban.
if your just doing for your personal use then do whatever you want there your pictures but i personally would advise not to change the background

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ChrisCwmbran
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Location: South Wales

Re: Blue skies?

Post by ChrisCwmbran » Tue Jul 23, 2019 12:55 pm

ghostwave525 wrote:
Tue Jul 23, 2019 12:52 pm
it depends, for me i like my pictures to be as close to the actual picture as possible because if it doesn't then i feel like it isn't mine also if your planning on posting to jp or a.net then you can't manipulate the picture or it will result in a ban.
if your just doing for your personal use then do whatever you want there your pictures but i personally would advise not to change the background
Thank you for the advice.

There's no way I'd submit an image to jp or a.net - they both seem to be hugely up them selves about image quality - yet each seem to allow relatively poor images when it suits them,

I think you are probably right. I'll post an example of the kind of image I'm taking about here in a minute.

ps. I make no claim that my images are good enough to be featured on the net anyway.

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ChrisCwmbran
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Location: South Wales

Re: Blue skies?

Post by ChrisCwmbran » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:01 pm

This is an example:

ImageSAAB JAS-39C/D Gripens by Chris Long, on Flickr

ghostwave525
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Re: Blue skies?

Post by ghostwave525 » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:06 pm

ChrisCwmbran wrote:
Tue Jul 23, 2019 12:55 pm
ghostwave525 wrote:
Tue Jul 23, 2019 12:52 pm
it depends, for me i like my pictures to be as close to the actual picture as possible because if it doesn't then i feel like it isn't mine also if your planning on posting to jp or a.net then you can't manipulate the picture or it will result in a ban.
if your just doing for your personal use then do whatever you want there your pictures but i personally would advise not to change the background
Thank you for the advice.

There's no way I'd submit an image to jp or a.net - they both seem to be hugely up them selves about image quality - yet each seem to allow relatively poor images when it suits them,

I think you are probably right. I'll post an example of the kind of image I'm taking about here in a minute.

ps. I make no claim that my images are good enough to be featured on the net anyway.
yea they do expect very high quality pictures the times they allow less quality pictures is of a rare aircraft. for example i got a raymond aviation bombardier challenger 604 accepted because it had only 2 other pictures of it at the time where if it was of a ba 787 with 100's of pictures it more than likely would of been rejected

post away, i had a look at some of your pictures on flickr and i love the harrier picture

ghostwave525
Posts: 33
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Re: Blue skies?

Post by ghostwave525 » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:08 pm

ChrisCwmbran wrote:
Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:01 pm
This is an example:

ImageSAAB JAS-39C/D Gripens by Chris Long, on Flickr
thats a difficult one cause it's a grey aircraft with a grey background. to be honest you could just have a picture of one with the real background and one with the blue background

John flightpath
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Re: Blue skies?

Post by John flightpath » Tue Jul 23, 2019 10:56 pm

I would darken a picture or lighten it. If the sky was grey on the day, then it was grey thats that. If you changed it to a clear blue sky, its actually a misrepresentation of the moment you captured. Personally I would keep it real.

Cheers
John
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Sigma APO OS DG 150-500mm
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ChrisCwmbran
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Re: Blue skies?

Post by ChrisCwmbran » Wed Jul 24, 2019 10:09 am

Thank you both :)

davem
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Re: Blue skies?

Post by davem » Wed Jul 24, 2019 1:49 pm

One thing to bear in mind is that if you transpose aircraft taken against grey skies onto a blue sky background, the lighting on the aircraft (presumably no sun) will not match the 'blue skies' where you would expect sun.
Having tried to cobble together cricket squad photos taken on 2 different nights in different conditions it is almost impossible to match the light artificially... :unsure:

Mark K
AeroResource Correspondent
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Re: Blue skies?

Post by Mark K » Wed Jul 24, 2019 5:08 pm

davem wrote:
Wed Jul 24, 2019 1:49 pm
One thing to bear in mind is that if you transpose aircraft taken against grey skies onto a blue sky background, the lighting on the aircraft (presumably no sun) will not match the 'blue skies' where you would expect sun.
Having tried to cobble together cricket squad photos taken on 2 different nights in different conditions it is almost impossible to match the light artificially... :unsure:
Exactly, there isn't a Photoshop plugin that can add sunshine to a dull image. Even trying a few things in PS resulted in this:

Image

which looks unnatural.

Mark

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ChrisCwmbran
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Re: Blue skies?

Post by ChrisCwmbran » Wed Jul 24, 2019 5:19 pm

Point well taken.

Thank you both for the comments, and thank you Mark for the demo :)

phantom6
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Re: Blue skies?

Post by phantom6 » Thu Jul 25, 2019 10:53 am

Not that I could ever alter a photo would not have a clue what to do I think there is more detail in the altered shot

Andy_99
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Re: Blue skies?

Post by Andy_99 » Fri Jul 26, 2019 12:05 pm

My take is if the day is grey, the pictures are grey.

If the sky is blue the pictures have blue sky, Sun & I remember that cracking day I had at XX

Personal choice though

Ps I'm still learning how to use photoshop/lightroom so changing the sky is also well over my skillset unless it's a preset.

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B58Hustler
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Re: Blue skies?

Post by B58Hustler » Mon Jul 29, 2019 12:57 pm

Using levels and curves will tease out texture from the sky.You could also do a split RAW,ie combine two files.
I usually use the from camera ev and a plus 1.

Wallace
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Re: Blue skies?

Post by Wallace » Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:00 pm

I'd second the above opinion. a +1EV adjustment is needed. In Photoshop, Curves - I would recommend adjusting in the white triangle to the 225 mark and perhaps lifting the highlights a little.

Your camera is underexposing exposing as if your picture was at 18% grey and does not give a true exposure, so a +EV adjustment manually compensates for this underexposure.

If all else fails make a test show, look at the histogram on the back of your camera and ETTR - Expose To The Right

Alfie
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Re: Blue skies?

Post by Alfie » Sun Aug 11, 2019 10:55 am

I found if I lighten the background and then add to saturation levels a bit, it tends to add a slight blue tinge to the picture. My editing suite allows me to isolate the background so I can just work on the background on it's own. Vice versa by isolating the background I can then invert the picture and work on the subject matter. Quite good for using on aircraft shots as you normally have a one coloured sky background and the rest is the aircraft image. The editing suite I use is Microsoft Digital Image 2006 Suite Edition may not have all the extras found on Photoshop but it suits my purpose quite well and very easy to use.

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