David, looks reasonably sharpened to me. What was the outcome of your appeal? I say post it in the photography feedback forum and see if the screener or one of the screeners can point you in the right direction. It used to be that sometimes a soft/oversharpened rejection would result in confusion and I later found out that it was given when an otherwise blurry or too soft shot was over-sharpened to compensate. I believe the new rules are the screeners will try to reasonably explain the rejection reasons better but, could this be the case here? I notice the top of the fuselage has a bit of jaggies starting to creep in (fuselages being round should be somewhat smooth and soft atthe very edge since it is an infinite fade to the bg (this is my opinion and observation, not a rule )
I have learned that A.net sharp is a bit higher than I am comfortable with for my taste so I adjust accordingly. With that being said, I felt your image could withstand another round or even two... here is what I came up with... I say put them both in layers in PS and turn off/on repeatedly and see if you like it or not...
I wasn't careful with masking so, from the original, you will get far better results of course...
Cheers!
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