Does the underside of these wings look OK?

[scottcolbath]

I used the skin softening tool to clean up the grainy look due to the underside not being exposed enough. I first cranked up the dark spots a bit, then hit them with the skin softening tool.

S.C.

[Joe Copalman]

Looks like you tried to bring a bit more detail out of the shadows than they were able to give up.  Even with RAW files, if the data isn't there, it isn't there.

Did you sharpen this image at all?  If so, did you just do local sharpening adjustments on the aircraft, or did you sharpen the whole image?  

[scottcolbath]

There wasn't much under those wings, so I guess I can't make lemonade from lemons, when I have no lemons. 

I gave it just a very light touch of sharpening to the entire pic.

S.C.

[Joe Copalman]

Well, you still might have something to work with. 

Global sharpening adjustments are going to sharpen everything - the structure of the object you want sharpened, the shadows, the sky - everything.  Confining your adjustments to just the illuminated portions of your subject means you're not adding noise (which is effectively what sharpening is doing to draw out more detail) to detail-less portions of the image like the sky and shadows and whatnot.  Additionally, you can confine your noise-reduction to just the shadows (or the sky as well).  Several ways to do this, but I use the quick selection tool in Photoshop to get this done. 

[scottcolbath]

Thanks Joe. I'll go back and play around with a fresh version and see what I can do.

S.C.