| Photograph Information |
Photographer's Comments |
Challenge: Postage Stamp III (Extended Editing*)
Collection: Portfolio
Camera: Canon EOS M200
Lens: Canon EF-M 55-200mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM
Location: Giddings, Texas (USA)
Date: May 17, 2025
Aperture: 6.4
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/790
Date Uploaded: May 22, 2025
|
My original shot was captured with a zoom lens from ground level during an honorary fly-by of this WWII propeller plane retired from active duty and now preserved by a local aviation society. It took a lot of post-processing to achieve this end result, but here were my basic steps:
-Tilt and crop
-Significantly adjust exposure, black level, saturation, and color balance
-Apply layers of retro color filters
-Burn the red hues in the tail of the plane
-Apply vintage color/textural overlay
-Add gentle Gaussian noise
-Add stylized text and basic white border
-Meticulously "erase" areas around border to create scalloped effect; save as PNG to preserve transparency
-Open PNG image as layer; add base layer filled with color of DPC gray background (for desktop view); merge layers down and export as JPG
-Resize and sharpen slightly for submission
I have zero clue how anyone here at DPC will respond to this sort of thing, but it sure was fun to produce. My only hope is that someone out there enjoys the nostalgia of it.
*** After voting ***
Wow. I'm floored by the response to this! It's very affirming to have this, of all images, score this well. I personally love this sort of vintage, hyper-stylized approach to visual imagery, but I worried people would see it as more "graphic design" than digital photography--and a lot of my favorite visual artwork out in the real world sits in that nebulous gray space between the two. It's also affirming to know that, at least on some rare occasions, a really not-so-great original capture can still be salvaged through post-processing with the right treatment. The original image looked like this:
It was really difficult to get the plane in the frame of my camera long enough to snap more than a few exposures (my M200 doesn't have a traditional viewfinder, only a touchscreen), and that happened to be the cleanest one I had of the side of the plane. Fortunately, the clipping in the shadows played nicely with the vintage styling choices!
So grateful for the kind comments, especially in a challenge with so many wonderful entries! |
Home -
Challenges -
Community -
League -
Photos -
Cameras -
Lenses -
Learn -
Help -
Terms of Use -
Privacy -
Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2025 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 06/07/2025 02:33:48 PM EDT.
Commemorating Aviation History
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
