"Dominic Sexton" wrote in message
...
In article , John Tyson
writes
The small images are definitely not usable.

They definitely are here. Only on a few of them have I felt the need to
use Google Earth to zoom in on part of the image that shows something
unusual.

I can make out some detail on
the screen, but as you say they are almost black. Mainly though, the
pixel
resolution in the images is much coarser than if you go to the Google
Earth
location. I think they should probably have emphasized that in the
instructions, since some people may be trying to search the small images.

I'm sure many are and in my experience that is perfectly acceptable.

One thing I found useful, in both the presented images and the Google
Earth
view, is to load the image into photoshop and enhance the contrast; on my
screen the Google Earth image is also very dark and lacks contrast.

Sounds like you might benefit from adjusting your monitor:

http://www.users.on.net/~julian.robi...st-monitor.htm

If it is an LCD flat panel you may want to experiment with the angle you
view it from too as that can have a marked influence on the brightness and
contrast.

--

Dominic Sexton

I retract my original statement about the pixel resolution being too coarse;
in reality it's about as good as what you get in Google Earth. The Google
Earth imagery "looks" better, but this is subjective I think; the detail you
can resolve is about the same in the small image and in Google Earth. (By
my calculations the pixel interval in the small images is about 1.5 feet.
The title of the kml file implies 1 meter resolution, but it's not clear if
this is the pixel interval in the original imagery or some other measure of
the image resolution. In any case, the 1.5 feet of the small images seems
adequate for the job.)

Regarding the monitor adjustments: You are probably right; I'm using an LCD
monitor, and the normal settings don't pull out details in the lowest
levels, even at optimum viewing angles. As far as I know I don't have any
way of adjusting the brightness/contrast/gamma on the monitor, so going to
Photoshop or some other image processing seems to be my only alternative to
pulling out detail in the imagery.

I was thinking about this today while away from my computer, and it occurred
to me that the darkness of the basic imagery may have been intentional; if
they expect the airplane to be significantly brighter than the background,
they may have darkened the normal imagery so a brighter object would stand
out. If anyone knows the coordinates of some of the wrecks they have found
I think it would be interesting to look at these in order to get a better
idea of what to look for.

John