User:Tysto/aerial

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I have begun a kind of personal project documenting cities and towns from the air during my regular travels. I'm using this page to keep track of them as I upload them, categorize them, and link to them from Wikipedia articles.

I only fly over US cities, and mostly Indiana right now. But I would encourage anyone to take aerial photos of any cities listed in Wikipedia. My view is that having any photos of towns and cities improves the articles, with ground photos of landmarks being best (see my home town of Bremen, Indiana) but I can take pictures of dozens of cities from the air that I'll never actually visit.

Please leave a message on my talk page if you have an opinion about whether this project is valuable or a waste of time, given that good satellite photos are readily available, especially for the US. Ironically, Google Maps added detailed coverage of all of Indiana in June 2005, making my task of identifying the cities much easier... and less valuable.

[edit] Indiana counties

[edit] Blackford County, Indiana

Hartford City from the west

Shamrock Lakes from the west

[edit] Dearborn County, Indiana

Aurora from the southwest.

West Harrison (at top) from the east.

West Harrison (at bottom) from the west.

Lawrenceburg from the southwest.

[edit] Decatur County, Indiana

Greensburg from the south.

Milford from the southwest.

New Point from the southwest.

St. Paul from the southwest.

[edit] Delaware County, Indiana

Albany from the west	Daleville from the northeast	Eaton from the west	Gaston from the northwest
Muncie downtown from the west	Muncie from the northwest	Selma from the northwest	Yorktown from the west

[edit] Elkhart County, Indiana

Nappanee from the southwest

Nappanee from the west

Wakarusa from the west

[edit] Fayette County, Indiana

Connersville from the southwest

[edit] Franklin County, Indiana

Batesville from the northeast

Brookville from the northeast

Oldenburg from the west

[edit] Fulton County, Indiana

Akron from the east

[edit] Hancock County, Indiana

Shirley and Wilkinson from the east

[edit] Grant County, Indiana

Fairmount from the northeast	Fowlerton from the northeast	Gas City from the northeast	Matthews from the west
VA hospital in Marion	Van Buren from the northeast

[edit] Henry County, Indiana

Cadiz from the west	Dunreith from the west	Greensboro from the west	Kennard from the northeast
Knightstown, Indiana from the northeast	Middletown from the east	New Castle from the west	Spiceland from the west
Springport from the southwest	Sulphur Springs from the southwest

[edit] Huntington County, Indiana

Andrews from the southwest	Huntington from the west	Salamonie Reservoir with Huntington in the distance	Mount Etna from the west
Warren from the southwest

[edit] Kosciusko County, Indiana

Burket from the southwest	Claypool from the west	Etna Green from the southwest	Kosciusko County near Silver Lake
Mentone from the northeast	Silver Lake from the southwest	Warsaw from the west

[edit] Madison County, Indiana

Anderson from the east

Chesterfield from the northeast

Markleville from the east

[edit] Marion County, Indiana

Beech Grove from the southwest

Downtown Indianapolis from the southwest

Speedway from above

[edit] Marshall County, Indiana

Bremen from the east	Lake of the Woods, southwest of Bremen from the west	Bremen from the west, with Nappanee in the distance	Bourbon from the east
La Paz from the northwest	Plymouth from above

[edit] Ohio County, Indiana

Rising Sun from the east

[edit] Randolph County, Indiana

Losantville from the southwest

Modoc from the southwest

Parker City from the southwest

[edit] Rush County, Indiana

Rushville from the west

Rushville from the east

[edit] Shelby County, Indiana

Fairland from the southwest

Shelbyville from the southwest

[edit] St. Joe County, Indiana

Lakeville from the west	Roseland from the south	South Bend downtown from the south	Notre Dame stadium
IUSB	Mishawaka and Osceola from the west	Wyatt, Indiana from above, a good example of a small town	Mishawaka, Indiana from above, looking east
Indian Ridge plaza, north of Mishawaka, Indiana from above, looking northeast

[edit] Union County, Indiana

Liberty from the east

West College Corner from the southwest

[edit] Wabash County, Indiana

La Fontaine from the east	Lagro from above	North Manchester from the southwest	North Manchester from the southwest
Roann from the east	Wabash from the east

[edit] Wayne County, Indiana

Centerville from the west

Hagerstown from the southwest

Richmond from the southwest

[edit] Kentucky counties

[edit] Boone County, Kentucky

Burlington from the south

[edit] Michigan counties

[edit] Monroe County, Michigan

Stony Point from the northeast

[edit] Ohio counties

[edit] Butler County, Ohio

College Corner from the west

[edit] Columbiana County, Ohio

Wellsville from the north

East Liverpool from the north

Salineville from the north

[edit] Erie County, Ohio

Kelleys Island from the east

[edit] Hamilton County, Ohio

Cleves from the southwest

Harrison from the east

Harrison from the west

[edit] Ottawa County, Ohio

Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island

[edit] How they're done

Light haze allows for excellent post-processing results. This is the original image of Lakeville-indiana-form-above.jpg.

I take photographs from the window of commercial airplanes I fly on each week in my business travels. Because I fly out of little South Bend Regional Airport in South Bend, these are mostly CRJs, which typically fly at about 25,000 feet, somewhat lower than than the jumbos. I try to take frequent photos of both towns and lakes along the route to help me identify the locations (lakes are much easier to recognize on satellite photos). I use Google Maps and Terraserver to do the indentification.

Heavy haze robs the image of color. This is the original of Matthews-indiana-from-above.jpg.

When the weather is clear in daylight, you can see the ground even at 25,000 feet, altho pictures taken from there have a strong blue haze over them. Results are best when shooting down almost under the plane; worst when shooting out toward the horizon, since the haze gets heavier toward the top of the picture instead of remaining even.

I take 5 megapixel digital photos and transfer them to my laptop for processing. I use Corel Paint Shop Pro (mostly because I've been using various versions for about 15 years), but Adobe Photoshop Elements is also a good choice (if you don't want to fork over the cabbage for Adobe Photoshop). Generally, I start by using the One Step Photo Fix, which automatically adjusts color, contrast, clarity, saturation, and some other settings to improve your photo. Then I manually adjust those same settings to further improve the image, trying to draw out natural color and contrast without burning the darker parts or oversaturating. It takes some trial-and-error, and it sometimes helps to create multiple adjustment layers so you can tweak adjustments separately rather than sequentially.

Getting even moderately comfortable adjusting these settings will help you improve all your photos, even everyday pictures of friends and family that seem fine when you initially shot them. You'll soon find that you prefer a bit more contrast or saturation than your camera produces naturally, and you'll discover that photography is as much about making great photos as it is about taking great photos.

Leave a message on my Talk page or e-mail me at 'derek...tysto.dot.com' if you have questions or if you would like help processing photos you have taken from the air.