Fancy Photographs

PACIFIC OCEAN (Feb. 12, 2015) Boatswain's Mates Adrian Martinez-Garcia and Jerry Williams direct a giant friggin' military hovercraft into the well deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Essex. U.S. Navy photo by Jason M. Graham.

EAST CHINA SEA (Feb. 12, 2015) Sailors and Marines embark aboard a giant friggin' military hovercraft inside the well deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard. U.S. Navy photo by Kevin V. Cunningham.

I will admit to a certain fondness for our Navy's amphibious assault ships. They are kind of like big floating pickup trucks. They have a big tailgate across the back end that can be lowered to allow all kinds of stuff to loaded or unloaded. Being as this is the Navy, most of this stuff floats, and to make it really simple, the aft end of the ship can be lowered in the water a bit so this floating stuff can float in or out. It's kind of science-fictiony, and kind of cool. I don't know how well it would work in rough weather, but it has got to be better than launching or retrieving boats by using lines.
    But that's not why these pictures are here. I saw these and something about them said 'enhanced'. I ran into this on my Chromebook a couple of weeks ago. They have some picture editors and one of the features they offer is 'enhancement' that does something to make your pictures more appealing. They certainly applied it to the default wallpaper on my Chromebook, and these two photos both have that same look. It's not like the pictures have been manipulated, everything that was in the original photo is still there. I think it's just that they've just done something to the colors, brightness and contrast, which are all pretty iffy things in the first place. It does give the pictures a kind of too-good-to-be-true look. I guess that's okay.