How do you overcome this

[Deleted User]

While on holiday we visited the Imperial War Museum at Duxford (UK). In the American Aircraft Hall they hang real full size aircraft from the ceiling (remember doing this with the plastic model aircraft as kids???).

I took this picture of an A10 Tankbuster (Warthog) head on is a dive. The problem is that a section under the plane (by the blue bi-plane) which is blown out due to the lighting of the building and windows around the hall.

Is there anything I can do elimanate this from the picture?? I did try cropping so that only the A10 was in the picture but ended up with so little of the plane in the picture that it lost its affect.

Here is the picture which has only been resized and jpg so that you can view it.

Thanks in advance

Tim

Richard

Tim,

I don't see an easy way out of this, I'm afraid. If you are willing to put some labor into it, you ought to be able to clone the bi-plane out altogether or just paint it over in white, since the ceiling is all blown in that area anyway. To be thorough, you would need to do something about at least some of the dark lines on the ceiling in that area to make them continuous.

Cool shot. I hope someone else has a better suggestion.

Cheers,

Grainbelt

Did you use a flash? I would think if you sped up your shutter and used more flash, it would slightly underexpose the cieling and the biplane, and still have an A10 diving out of the sky.

Expect there are more knowledgeable folks around to correct me.

[Deleted User]

Unfortunately it was done without flash (as were the other 120-ish I took), ended up with some lousy shots due to wobble in the hand, but to compensate I had some very nice shots. I will post a link to the album when I have done it.

Tim

pathfinder

It looks like direct sunlight is pouring in the windows in the lower left corner of the frame. That is going to create real difficulties when shooting with interior lighting. Maybe try shooting at another time of day - early morning maybe, when the sun is higher in the sky and does not shine in so directly.

Shooting planes indoors in museums can be very challenging, and frequently the only real solution is to extract the image in some manner which is very tedious and time consuming. This image has a lot of contrast between the Warthog and the background, so a Magnetic Lasso or Pen tool shot help select it fairly easily, then invert the election, and paint in a new sky or some such.

Shooting in RAW, will of course, give you a little more wiggle room in your highlights before they blow.

This was shot in RAW in the Sea Plane Museum in Sault Ste. Marie - a cool place if you like airplanes.



Sometimes you have to content yourself with collecting details rather than the whole airframe.

I am hoping to revisit Wright-Patterson's Museum some time this fall yet.

[Deleted User]

Cheers Path, I can say with certain it was not a sunny day, damp and over cast. The hall is a semi buried dome shaped building with windows that are about 600mm high that run the around 2/3rd (the unburied section) of the hall and are situated where the dome roof meets the walls. Also fitted below these windows are large spotlights that (look at the lower left corner of the picture). I did shoot in raw and I'm still learning what to do with these pictures.

I did get some very good shots, I only spotted two sea planes, one was a short Sunderland and the other was a Catalina both from the WWII. Unfortunately due to there size and positioning in the halls it was impossible to get a clear picture of them.

Tim

pathfinder

Draggin, sorry abut the confusion - that bright highlight was the interior lights, not the sun after all - Arghh.

Your choices are to extract the plane and replace the background



or blur the background in some manner after selecting the plane.



Neither is very satisfying

I can never shoot at a wide enough aperture to keep the DOF I need for the whole plane, and yet blur the background adequately in camera. Which leaves the work to Photoshop after the fact.

With your wart hog file that you posted, this is the best I can do on a short notice.. I see there is a lot of image reflections from the floor underneath the airframe. You cannot just darken that area with an Overlay Brush, so I just painted it black.

There are fellows here who can do much better I am sure. If this disturbs you I will happily move the image to a circular file.

[Deleted User]

I like the last picture you mocked up, as you say it will take a lot of work to get a decent finished picture. Unfortunately I lack the expereince of how to cut it out and put it on another picture or play with the back ground and place it back in again.

I think this will end up on a list of things to try in the future, thanks for your help

Tim

Scott_Quier

draggin wrote:

I like the last picture you mocked up, as you say it will take a lot of work to get a decent finished picture. Unfortunately I lack the expereince of how to cut it out and put it on another picture or play with the back ground and place it back in again.

I think this will end up on a list of things to try in the future, thanks for your help

Tim

One easy way to select only the plane is to use Quick Masks (Photoshop).

Short (very) tutorial, and I hope I've got it all right here as I'm working from memory rather than with PS in front of me...:

• Open image
• type "q"
• Select brush, sized appropriately
• Set default colors (type 'd')
• Type '\' to show your mask
• Stroke with your brush - did you get a red mark? Yes, continue to mask all but the plane. No, type 'x' to switch colors.
• Mask all but plane
• Type 'q' to exit quick mask
• Type ctrl-C to copy selection
• Open target image (i.e., the cloud image above)
• Type ctrl-v to paste in your plane as a new layer
• Click on the 'Move' tool to move your plane where you want it to be in the image.
• Finish editing the plane (darken light spots, etc) as mentioned above
• Save result
• Done.

pathfinder

Scott, I selected the plane with a magnetic lasso, used the Refine Edges command to finish my edges, and then Cmd-V to drag the plane onto the new background I pulled out of my skies that I have saved for this purpose.

Photoshop just has so many different ways to do the same tasks.

Scott_Quier

pathfinder wrote:

Scott, I selected the plane with a magnetic lasso, used the Refine Edges command to finish my edges, and then Cmd-V to drag the plane onto the new background I pulled out of my skies that I have saved for this purpose.

Photoshop just has so many different ways to do the same tasks.

Yup and I'll have to try your method sometime. I didn't even know about "Refine Edges". I'll have to look into that.

pathfinder

Scott, the Refine Edges command ( under the Selection drop down menu in PS ) is one of the really neat new commands in Photoshop 3.

It helps get rid of the fine, fuzzy, white border we used to get along horizons when multiply blending skies, for instance.

Refine Edges was worth the upgrade to CS3 for me!

Scott_Quier

pathfinder wrote:

Scott, the Refine Edges command ( under the Selection drop down menu in PS ) is one of the really neat new commands in Photoshop 3.

It helps get rid of the fine, fuzzy, white border we used to get along horizons when multiply blending skies, for instance.

Refine Edges was worth the upgrade to CS3 for me!

Thanks.

And that explains why I don't know about it. I've got PS CS2 installed right now. I just bought and received CS3, but wanted to wait until after I got my latest wedding finished before I attempted to uninstall CS2, install CS3, learn what I need, and then process the photos. Just too much risk.

But, I'm just about finished with the wedding and that will give me something like 45 days to get up to speed on CS3 before the next wedding.