Also, somthing I forgot to add. Here is the original that I edited off of.

A lot of time and patients, and Adobe Photoshop

But more specifically…

I first started out with the picture, and my first step was to duplicate the layer so I had two base pictures. Then I made the bottom one really blurry, and applied a transparency mask to the upper layer (that’s why the tip of the wings are blurrier than the roots). Next I changed the contrast a little to make the sky brighter and the shadows darker, in addition to that, I added in some shading and highlights of my own using the airbrush tool. With that stuff completed it was now time to make the image black and white. I changed the picture to a grey scale, but after doing so, the look didn’t quite cut it for me, so I converted the image once again to a 'Duotone', setting the first tone grey, and the second brown. That made the light parts of the image white and the dark parts brown, and that still didn’t give me the look I wanted, so I went ahead and made the image Tri tone, replacing the white highlights with a more yellow color. (You can see more of the colors I used by looking at the top of the image, from left to right, you see the white of the sun, turn to yellow, to a darker brown)

The last step was now to give it the elaborate lighting effect you see on it, and this wasn’t your basic 'place the lens flair on the sun' approach, this time I was going to try something new, so I went under filters, render, and lighting effects, and placed a spotlight in the upper left hand corner making it have a little bit of shadow on each corner. After rendering the light into the image it still left the picture looking a little plain, so I made 3 more spotlights to place one on each corner to try and lighten the dark corners. After rendering them into the image, I found the picture looked better but there was still something missing, so once again I went under the lighting effect and placed one more light, but this one I placed on the clouds to give it the effect that the suns light was reflecting of off them.

Now with the bulk of the picture done it was time for the final touches. I first added some noise and blurred the image some, then I placed a lens flair coming from the upper left corner, and then finally I got the airbrush out, and put black and white streaks all over the picture to give it the effect of an old photo.

The glare affect seems to ruin it by not being in black and white. Other than that its very good.

It looks bloody brilliant a great edit.

that looks amazing.

WoodLouse? Great eye, at first glance, its not there

At second glance, its still not there,

At 3rd, it is.

I love the edit! It does look like a messed up picture taken with a messed-up camera! Very cool

Its a fine job, but I wonder.....did it come from the head or did you have an existing old image to try to duplicate the effects from ?.............

Beautiful!  It is one of the most incredible edits I have seen!  Belongs in the photos section.

Having said that . . .

I do not want to berate you, but as long as you are gathering info for your next shot, there are two green dots on it that aren't in the original, one on the wing and one on the port (left) gear.  (I know, trivial)  I don't mean to be rude, but, well, there it is.

On another note, I made this the background image on my screen.

a nice edit, very flash!

wow...  thanks for all of the replies, sorry I have been gone for quite a while, and haven’t been keeping up with the threads.

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As for the effects of the picture, I had been looking at existing photos taken by old cameras during WWII to try to duplicate certain effects, such as the high contrast between light and dark surfaces, however there are other things that I came up with my self. The lighting is an example of this, note the way the clouds are lit to look as if the sun where reflecting off of them, this is one of the various effects I had come up with my self.

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Yeah, I wasn’t thinking when I converted the image from Duotone (two colors, brown, and white) back to RGB, and added that colorful lens flair

I don’t mind the criticism at all, I am always looking for ways to make my pictures look more realistic, and what other better way than to get feedback from you, the viewers.

So in other words, your comments were far from rude, but rather helpful

Again, thank you for all of your positive feedback, and who knows, there might be another picture coming soon