The Canon 28-135 IS is also a great lense.

Hey ho! 😮 I was just about to say “don’t touch the Canon 28-135IS with a barge pole”… The 28-135 is a right bag of nails IMHO, and I wish I’d never got rid of my faithful 28-105 which I sold when I bought a body which included the 28-135.

Andy

I’d definitely be thinking twice and thrice about buying the 100-400 L

Ho hum… Over four years with a 100-400L-IS and no problems so far – touch wood. Actually, and contrary to DamienB’s comments, I’ve recently grown to value the 100-400 more than I did in the past… I used to think it was rather soft at the long end, but after those four years I’ve finally mastered the lens and I wouldn’t change it – unless it breaks, that is.

Having said that, there is no way I’d knock the Canon 75-300 as I used that lens for years and in terms of price/performance its a difficult lens to beat.

ANdy

Right, so back to my original question, what steps do you all take in Photoshop? 😮

I’m afraid my process is fairly simple for web display as I usually can’t be bothered with more complex techniques or messing with layers unless I’m after something very particular:

1. RAW to TIFF conversion – a subject in itself which, if done “properly” can reduce the amount of effort required in PhotoShop
2. Rotate (if needed) for level horizon
3. Crop
4. Remove dust spots (filter, equalise shows them very well, then swap back to normal mode to clone them out)
5. Remove other undesirables (e.g. lamp posts appearing to grow out of the tops of fuselages, overhead transmission lines and pylons, etc)
6. Adjust colour balance / white balance until I’m happy with what I see
7. Adjust contrast and levels (and/or curves) until I’m happy with what I see, verified with the hystogram (no empty space at either end)
8. Resize and/or alter pixels per inch to desired final output size and resolution
9. Unsharp mask (settings depend on image, purpose – i.e. less USM for printing than for web, etc. USM is a “black” art IMHO)
10. Save in output format, usually jpeg for web

Andy

Don’t forget the important step when resizing for web display is to reduce the dpi to 72 (screen resolution)

Come on now Moggy, don’t go perpetuating another urban myth… 😮 Change the PIXELS per inch to 72 – dots per inch are a measure of printer resolution [only] :rolleyes: :p

Andy

JPEG is a “lossy” format – that is, data is lost from the image when the file is reduced in size during the save process. Whilst this reduction in size has advantages, it also has disadvantages when it comes to reconstituting the image later as it is not always possible to “recover” the lost data. The amount of data that is lost, and thus the reduction in quality, is directly associated with the quality level that is set when you have an image. The higher the quality setting, the less the file is compressed, the less data is lost, and thus the higher the quality of the image you will see when you view it next.

Artifacts that are introduced as a result of reducing the file size during a JPEG save are known as “jpeg compression”. In the following two images, it should be possible to discern a noticable loss of quality in the “low” image as compared to the “high” image. It is easiest to notice the artifacts in the “low” image if you look at a hard line such as the line that demarks the edges of the nose from the sky. The “shimmery” area just into the sky around the nose are jpeg compression artifacts. Its worth noting that the “low” quality image is 32k (Photoshop level 3), whilst the “high” quality image is 132k (Photoshop level 12).

For reproduction such as printing, ALWAYS save at highest the quality setting. For web display, a lower value should suffice. Finally, note that losses from compression are cumulative – resaving a jpeg over and over again will gradually make the quality worse.

Andy

Not bad from a Nikon photographer! 😉

Andy

Andy as you will see from the title of the thread we were enquiring about either getting Twin Otters or Trislanders for this special operation. The Trislanders and Islanders are Piston aircraf,t thus the pilots require an MEP, which all of us have.

Well, I’m glad to hear your flying training is back on track then… :rolleyes: (my emphasis above)

first off, my training, if you had followed what was going on you would have seen that in October last year I came off the APP at OAT due to family issues, I have since continued with OAT on a modular course, I took leave in February to concentrate on the airline until which point that I can resume my training….it’s a suprising amount of work to run an airline, let alone complete all 14 ATPL groundschool exams, and then complete the actual flying.