Gulf Fritillary

[Don Jacobs]

I was able to capture this colorful one at a local festival over the weekend. Shot using the 1DIV, 150mm, f/9.0, 1/300, fill flash used. C&C greatly appreciated.

[Mitch Haimov]

This is an interesting subject in excellent condition and the DOF works well. I also like the comp. However, you have a lot of blown pixels, which are causing you to lose detail in the fritillary. You shouldn't have any trouble recovering the highlights and detail in the RAW conversion process (assuming this is a RAW capture). A combination of reducing the saturation of the oranges (HSL adjustment in Adobe Camera RAW--the third tab) and bringing the Whites down a little in the Basic tab should work well and the Whites adjustment might also help with the distracting white spot peaking from behind your subject. If you hold down the alt/option key while making the Whites adjustment you will be able to see when you get to the point of no blown pixels (image will go black). (No offense intended if you're already familiar with these tools/techniques…)

[Jonathan Ashton]

I really like the composition and the lighting, I have checked the histogram and the lights and the darks are a little too strong, I would suggest go back to the raw file and open up the histogram a little. Also check the saturation of the yellows and reds, you have a fine image here it is well worth a little extra time processing.

[Satish Ranadive]

Very nice image of beautiful butterfly. I like the wing spread ,colors and composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[Don Jacobs]

I went back to the original file and made some adjustments. Is the re-post any better?

[Diane Miller]

I find this a very pleasing and artistic image. But to the a above comments I'd also add to check the camera calibration tab. Adobe Standard tends to blow out reds / yellows with many (if not all) Canon cameras. Going for a more subtle starting point and bringing things up is my preferred approach rather than trying to calm down blown out channels.

[Mitch Haimov]

It appears you made your adjustments toward more saturation and contrast, rather than less. So not an improvement IMO. Here are my recommended steps:

Click on the HSL/Grayscale tab in Adobe Camera RAW (something similar may be available in other software) and move the Oranges slider left, watching the right edge of the Histogram as you do so. At a guess, 20-25 points, but let the Histogram be your guide--you want it to mostly pull away from the right edge (we'll get it completely off the edge in the Basic tab). You may find you need to use additional sliders, perhaps Reds or Magentas. Example below, but it does not reflect your image (the right edge of the Histogram shows a starting point, not what your target is):

134080

Next, return to the Basic tab. Here, you'll want to hold the alt/option key down while slowly dragging the Whites slider to the left. Blown pixels will show in color, the rest will be black. Your goal is to go just far enough to get everything black except specular highlights. Of course, you don't want to go so far as to make a muddy image--in this case it may not be possible to recover the brightest white areas without making a mess of things. Using the same technique to drag the Highlights slider left can also help here--you want the combination that recovers the blown pixels and yields a pleasing/appropriate range of tones. You can also use the same approach to recover shadow detail by alt/option dragging the Blacks and Shadows sliders to the right*. Once you've done all this, if you think you sacrificed too much punch in your colors you can try dragging the Vibrance (not Saturation) slider a little the right, but don't overdo it. Once the vibrance looks right, alt/option click on the Whites slider again to confirm the highlights are still okay. You can also refer to the Histogram in upper right to monitor your progress--you don't want a spike climbing the edges**. And don't obsess about a few stubborn pixels or if you can't bring back the whitest whites. Finally, you may want to go back and forth between the HSL/Grayscale and Basic tabs to fine tune if you're feeling adventurous.

Note also that when you have an image that is too muted, the same approach can be used dragging in the opposite direction to boost contrast without blowing things out. This would work, for example, in conjunction with Diane's advice (which I just read after writing the above…).

*Unfortunately Adobe has changed the names of some sliders and the way they work, so things may be different depending upon which version of Photoshop/ACR you are using...

**Sometimes you will have a channel you can't recover in the blacks. This is because that color simply doesn't exist in an area of the image because it is saturated in the opposite color. This would be true, for example a saturated yellow area will show yellow when you alt/option click on the Blacks or Shadows and you will have a spike at the left edge of the Histogram. This is not a problem, but can be frustrated if you are now aware of the reason.

Hopefully this all makes a reasonable amount of sense…probably more so if you try it out while reading.

Good luck, have fun, and please re-repost your results. Again, this image is very worth it. And once you've done it a couple times you'll own it.

[Diane Miller]

Excellent advice, Mitch. A footnote on the changes in the sliders: Process 2012, which I think was new with LR 4 and PS 5, has provided dramatically better leeway in recovering detail in darks and lights, to the point that HDR is needed much less often now. With this version of raw conversion, I would add using the re-named (and re-worked) Shadows and Highlights sliders, in many cases before needing to resort to adjusting Whites and Blacks.

[Mitch Haimov]

Thanks, Diane, for the tip RE starting with Shadows & Highlights before Blacks & Whites, as I am in the habit of starting the other way 'round without giving it much thought.

[Jonathan Ashton]

I would agree with Diane, the latest ACR is fantastic, the Shadows and Highlights do not interfere with one another. I use the White slider as an initial way of adjusting the overall brightness, to ensure there is just a tiny space left on the right side of the histogram before launching to CS6.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Don. You found a beautiful specimen giving you a nice pose. You also have good overall sharpness on the butterfly and a pleasing comp. I would concur with the suggested tweaks in regard to the saturation and whites (and agree that the repost takes things in the wrong direction). :S3: Mitch has offered some excellent and detailed suggestions above (Thanks, Mitch for taking the time to do this!) which should help you with this image and with others in the future. This is a strong image and well worth spending a little extra time on!