Fort Grey Photo | TrekEarth

Photographer’s Note

Another photo from the far west of New South Wales, this time from the very arid and isolated north west corner, occupied these days by the Sturt National Park.
Fort Grey was a base for the early European explore Charles Sturt. Later there was a home stead there which would have been the base for sheep and possible cattle grazing. The area around is dotted with abandoned properties.
This old windmill is one of the remaining structures at Fort Grey.
The photo was scanned from a negative but, as with some other scanned photos I've had a lot of trouble with the sky. Does anyone have helpful suggestions for improving the sky - I scan with a very high resolution I've tried despeckling etc but nothing seems to work very well. As a result I haven't posted a sharpened photo because sharpening makes it worse. Suggestions welcome.

jhm, mafegan, Charo has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

jhm (83786) 2009-09-14 4:25

Hello Ian,

Twelve year old picture, I think this image be able today again on the same place.
An excellent detailed picture, sharpness and clarity be superb.
Very well done, TFS.

Have a nice day,
John.

mafegan (4633) 2009-09-14 6:07

Hello Ian
The sky is often a problem in scans - because any irregularities are very obvious. This irregularity probably exists in the the foreground area but is hidden amongst the detail. Perhaps it is a very fine layer of fungi starting to grow? Whatever, I have seen much worse in my slide scans. I have done a workshop where I firstly used the patch tool in photoshop to remove the most obvious blemishes and then I applied 'Neat image' which seems to have cleaned up the sky. A very typical outback scene. The pov is good - could only be Australia! Tfs, Marlene

[workshop] [compare] +

Charo (32190) 2009-09-14 13:25

Hello Ian,
Excellent result of scanning the image. A sample of the varied landscape of Australia with great composition and depth.
Best wishes,
Charo

delpeoples (7008) 2009-09-15 0:21

Hi Ian, I love this typically Australian photo. Great use of the vertical frame and inclusion of the person in the BG for scale. The scan is good, although I know what you mean with the sky and sharpening, wish I had an answer for you, sorry. The scanned photos in Australian landscape shots to me seem to bring so strongly the essence of the the Australian outback. Great job, TFS, Lisa.

linask (2829) 2009-09-15 13:24

Hello Ian,

I'm not sure if you use Photoshop or some other software to process photos. Cleaning up sky in Photoshop should be quite easy. I made a short description how to do it in Photoshop CS2 (CS3 and CS4 should be similar ):

1. First duplicate layer ( "Layer->Duplicate Layer..." menu). After doing that in layers window you will see two layers - "background" and "background copy". If you can't see layers window, make it visible by clicking on "Window->Layer" Photoshop menu.

2. Then choose Magic Wand tool (press 'W' key) and press on the clear area of the sky to select it. If needed expand selected area ( right click and choose "add to select" option). If it selects too much use right click and "remove from selection" option to reduce selected area.

3. After whole sky is selected - add layer mask. In layers window choose your "background copy" and a press on the small square button with white dot in the middle on the bottom of layers window.

4. Once again click on "background copy" layer anywhere outside black and white layer mask thumbnail to place white rectangle around layer itself, not layer mask. By doing that you tell Photoshop that further editing will edit the image itself, not the layer mask.

5. After that choose "Filter -> Noise -> Reduce Noise..." from Photoshop menu. Set filter to the most aggressive noise reduction settings - "preserve details" can be set as low as 0%. Since you added layer mask all the changes will only be applied to the selected area (sky). Therefore even the most extreme noise reduction won't remove any details form other areas of the image.
6. Merge all layers using "Layer->Flatten Image" menu.

I think in this case there is no need to use some specialized noise removal software. Simple Photoshop filter can do the job.

Linas