Please critique this Army Skydiver picture photoshop job (before and after). Thanks

[MikeFairbanks]

I like the original picture. Not sure what others think. I had one compliment on it. Basically, it's the Army skydiving team known as The Golden Knights. I was lucky enough to catch a photo of their plane directly overhead at last weekend's Great Georgia Airshow, and two skydivers had exited the plane.

Unfortunately, the wing was slightly cut off, so I rebuilt it in Photoshop Elements, Photofiltre, and Paint.

I have a couple questions:

1. Is this dishonest, or a simple fair fix?

2. Did I do a good job?

3. Is it a decent photograph?

Any critique is appreciated, no matter how soft or hard. I'm here to learn. I'm also going to post this in the production room.

Thanks.



Before:

http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt98/MichaelFairbanks/Paratroopers.jpg


After:

http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt98/MichaelFairbanks/GoldenKnights.jpg

[cicopo]

Looks good to me with the repair. I wouldn't worry about "cheating" on this anymore than I would on correcting a bad exposure or removing an unwanted object.

[Eagle]

Looks pretty decent. Only thing I would work on is the letter "Y".

[FlyingPhotog]

I agree on the "Y" as it looks a tad "underfed" compared to the other letters.

Now, about the sky which seems to be completely missing... ;)

[PhotosGuy]

That looks great to me! Got a nice sky shot to put behind it? ;)

[MikeFairbanks]

Thanks.

Yes, I noticed the Y was a bit skinny. I'll work on that.

I decided it works a lot better as a black and white. I'll fix the Y.

Thanks, guys.

[Eagle]

Post the new edit when you get it done.

[MikeFairbanks]

I decided to go black and white. It got a lot more positive reviews that way. The color really took away from the moment, the feel, etc.

The whole point of the picture is to make the viewer stop to think about jumping out of the plane...a moment in time....something like that.

I tried really hard to get this shot. The plane came overhead the first time, and I didn't really think much about it. Then all of a sudden I see a skydiver drifting down. So I followed the plane each time it circled and fired off a bunch of shots hoping I'd get a picture of someone jumping. Luckily I got the shot.

I always want others to like my shots, of course, just like all of you, but if I like one of my shots, then I'm pretty satisfied. If others like it too, then it's icing on the cake.



I also worked on the Y in the photo to get it closer to what it's supposed to look like, and I'm not going to really spend more time on it since most people won't even notice it.

http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt98/MichaelFairbanks/GoldenKnightsSoclosetoFinished.jpg

[Eagle]

Looks good.

[RadAL]

i would say the first but without the crop over the wing.... cause the 2nd one is cropped too tight/close.