Author Topic: Photography. New Zealand, Rome, and now, World War II Aviation.  (Read 9387 times)

Offline Rob

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Re: Photography. New Zealand, Rome, and now, World War II Aviation.
« Reply #45 on: April 21, 2009, 05:20 PM »
I'm cleaning up this year's images and thought I'd share this little progression to illustrate the process...

Original Image:


Removed all the junk:


Color Corrected:


Just for the hell of it:


Offline JesseVader08

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Re: Photography. New Zealand, Rome, and now, World War II Aviation.
« Reply #46 on: April 21, 2009, 07:13 PM »
Woah, very nice Rob.  I assume you've done all of that with Photoshop?  Very impressive.  It's great to remove all the junk so the entire focus is on the plane rather than being distracted by the objects around it.

Offline Rob

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Re: Photography. New Zealand, Rome, and now, World War II Aviation.
« Reply #47 on: April 21, 2009, 07:27 PM »
Thanks Jesse. :)  Yeah it was all Photoshop.  For me what makes these things more than just tourist photos and more worthwhile or at least interesting is to make them look like they weren't taken at public showing with a bunch of (basically) tourists fawning all over it.  Unless a person is the subject, I hate having people in my pictures - you'll probably see that theme in most of the stuff I've put in this thread.  Getting cropped close ups of these things like that is easy but getting a full wide-shot is basically impossible. 

I usually fix these up in 5 to 10 minutes but I spent somewhere between 6 and 8 hours on this one.  The tail wheel and the big yellow R came from entirely different photos... painting the people off the tail of the plane took a long time and I went as far as removing the reflection of the orange ladder from the underside of the wing.  Stuff you don't see too much at this size but makes a big difference in the larger image. 
« Last Edit: April 21, 2009, 07:32 PM by Rob »

Offline ruiner

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Re: Photography. New Zealand, Rome, and now, World War II Aviation.
« Reply #48 on: April 22, 2009, 02:42 PM »
Nice work Rob.

Offline Angry Ewok

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Re: Photography. New Zealand, Rome, and now, World War II Aviation.
« Reply #49 on: April 24, 2009, 10:48 AM »
I actually got to hang out in the cockpit of one of those B-17's... They've done a ton of work since then, it seems. Awesome photography, Rob.

Offline Rob

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Re: Photography. New Zealand, Rome, and now, World War II Aviation.
« Reply #50 on: April 24, 2009, 11:23 PM »
Thanks guys!

I actually got to hang out in the cockpit of one of those B-17's... They've done a ton of work since then, it seems. Awesome photography, Rob.

What do you mean that they've done a ton of work since then?  Were you in a different one or something?  This one's been flying for 10 or 15 years (longer?) as far as I know.

Offline Nicklab

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Re: Photography. New Zealand, Rome, and now, World War II Aviation.
« Reply #51 on: April 25, 2009, 12:34 PM »
That B-17 was flying around Dallas again this week.  The Liberator is here too, apparently the last one flying.

I'm heading down there Sunday to get some new pictures. :)

Was that Liberator silver?  When I was getting my motorcycle license a few years ago one flew overhead and it looked gorgeous!
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Offline Rob

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Re: Photography. New Zealand, Rome, and now, World War II Aviation.
« Reply #52 on: April 25, 2009, 01:15 PM »
Dark green.  After digging around a little I found out that there are two type of Liberators, the one that was here was the last of it's type, and there are two of the other type still flying.

Offline Nicklab

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Re: Photography. New Zealand, Rome, and now, World War II Aviation.
« Reply #53 on: April 25, 2009, 02:05 PM »
Ahh.  I think the one I saw is THIS ONE.  It's the only B-24J that's still flying.
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Offline Rob

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Re: Photography. New Zealand, Rome, and now, World War II Aviation.
« Reply #54 on: April 25, 2009, 04:58 PM »
Unless the Collings Foundation has two of them, then you saw a different one, because that's the one that was in Dallas.

Offline Angry Ewok

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Re: Photography. New Zealand, Rome, and now, World War II Aviation.
« Reply #55 on: April 26, 2009, 12:27 AM »
Thanks guys!

I actually got to hang out in the cockpit of one of those B-17's... They've done a ton of work since then, it seems. Awesome photography, Rob.

What do you mean that they've done a ton of work since then?  Were you in a different one or something?  This one's been flying for 10 or 15 years (longer?) as far as I know.

By that I meant judging by your photos, the interior of the Nine-o-Nine is much improved/restored from the time I crawled around in it. When I last saw it, the interior had been totally stripped. Even the fuselage guns look better.

The Liberator they had here, with the Fortress, was silver. Formerly the All American, I believe.