 A E R O F I L E S A CENTURY OF AMERICAN AVIATION
 
The original photo as received — missing its tail, murky and lacking contrast, and with a nasty fold line and emulsion cracks. What more could anyone ask in the way of a challenge? 
A separate photo of the tail (why the two-part photo is unknown) solved one problem, but added another — it was a different size. However, some trees (arrows) saved the day and a lot of extra work. 
To establish a reduction ratio for the shot of the tail, we were fortunate in having a bit of duplicated area in both photos. In this case, I copied a small section from both photos and used the distance between the center of two trees as a common measure (x) in order to arrive at a proportional number, then reduced the tail photo. 
The merger. First order of business was grayscale balancing. That took a bit of guesswork in back-and- forth lightening and darkening both photos, but since the "color" of the sky was unimportant to the picture, close was good enough. The the real work began. Re-doing the sky was an easy spray job with the airbrush. Adding some background to both edges, as well as planting a new lawn around the tail photo was just a matter of cloning parts of the photos. Removing the fold line, replacing some of the wiring, and brightening the landing gear took most of the time — total of about three hours. Although the word "enhancing" pains the hearts of purists, who translate it as "tampering with history," I disagree with that attitude as both an historian and an artist. Here at Aerofiles, great care is taken to electronically enhance graphics only to the least degree necessary to show an aircraft to its best advantage, and in no way is the historical worth of any photo ever compromised. 
While this Waco was more of a major project than most, I think it would have made Brukner, Junkin, and Weaver quite pleased to see their beautiful critter presented looking more like the day the picture was taken instead of that derelict at the top. (— K. O. Eckland 5/2/05) (For more examples of before-and-after enhancements, see Rescuing Photographs) |