First processing attempt

[Turk10mm]

This is my first attempt at post processing a photo that I took with my new rig. I removed the power lines but it ended up taking away from the shot, so I left them in.

Criticism welcome. Be gentle, I have never done the digital processing before like this. And my first digital SLR is less than a week old. :)

[Turk10mm]

here's the original for reference..

[Turk10mm]

damn, it must suck :P

[andyz]

I might experiment with a vignette or something to detract more from the background and emphasize the RC helicopter. The dark trees may make that not work, I'm not sure.

[Turk10mm]

that's what i was having trouble with.. I could probably work on highlighting the heli only to bring it out. I'll give it a try this evening.

[carrbowl]

I think the subject is good..it's just hard to focus on it with the background. If you get a chance take another one without all the distraction in the back, or take ya a ladder and set it up in the middle of the field!!! and shoot down!! I would suggest the easier method...

[Turk10mm]

i actually have a LOT of good photos that don't have the distraction. But the problem with those is there's.. well, no distraction. Its just a heli on blue sky and a little too simple. I'll post a coupld of those up as well.

I also captured two crashes in mid crash, so when I get some time this evening I'll post em up.

[carrbowl]

What settings did you use? I can't get it off KUSO...

[Turk10mm]

Do you think this one would be better suited to processing. I didn't realize I had another good shot in the sequence. ISO 250, 1/1000, 5.6 @135mm

well now that I look at them side by side, I don't know why I even chose the other shot. This one is much more clear.

[carrbowl]

I can't see them side by side...but you see what I mean by all the background messing with your subject? Do you have one with with no houses in the background? I'd be curious to see what it looks like. You know sometimes, you think it will look better, and then whammo...it doesn't. So just for future reference..just in case I get the opporunity to shoot helicopters in the field.... I'd be curious...

[TexasTrails]

Try shooting this wide open with as large a aperture as possible to blur the background. Renae and Andy are right, the background is just too distracting. If you can shoot at f/2.8 or lower I think you'll be impressed with the results. Otherwise your focus on the model is very sharp. Keep experimenting, that's what its all about.

[Turk10mm]

thanks for the CC all. Unfortunatley, my only lens has a minimum of f/3.5 and with the zoom out to 135 higher than that. 5.6 i think.

[sbug_adam]

what did you do? lol

[boomerd35]

Hey Tony:

Just ran across this thread. Hope you don't mind- I took a try at a quick edit. Everybody is correct about the background distractions, so I cropped it to get rid of as much distraction as possible and isolate the subject some more. I left it off center to give a little more dynamics. Then I created a duplicate layer, and used masking to adjust the levels on the copter, and blurred and darkened the background slightly to make it pop a little more. Might sound complicated, but it isn't too bad. If you're intrested, I'll email you the adjustment file with an explanation of what I did.

[JustinRD]

Nice edit Boomer...I think the croping helped a lot