Upside down...

[Karl Günter Wünsch]

http://www.lithos-mineralien.de/naturescapes/20080520_set3_empusa_0146_bp.jpg
Empusa pennata, Les Vignes, Tarn Valley, Dept. Lozere, France
Canon 40D, Tokina 100mm f/2.8 @ f/8, 1/25, ISO 640, Berlebach Mini tripod, MLU.

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Karl,
The image, exposure and composition is good; however, I did some modifications to your composition, I hope you like it. I cloned out the loose branches on top, gave you some contrast, adjusted the color tones and hues and sprinkled a little sharpening...:cool:

[Ed Vatza]

Hello Karl,

I've been looking at this image and Gus's redo for a little while and I'm still having a tough time getting my head around the image. Maybe that's what you were trying to do here. I still don't know exactly what I am looking at. :) Anyway whatever it is, it looks sharp and moreso in Gus's redo. The same goes for the background which is super. I think Gus cloned out legs at the top if I pieced together the image correctly.

[Robert O'Toole]

Very cool Karl. I love how the tight crop and the fact that he is hanging really hide the manits' shape.

Do you have any of the entire body out of curiosity?

Gus I appreciate the desire to help but I like the density, lack of noise and tones of the original and I think you just cloned out the manits' legs :eek:
Although I do like the big dark stick or leg gone.

Robert

[Karl Günter Wünsch]

Very cool Karl. I love how the tight crop and the fact that he is hanging really hide the manits' shape.

Do you have any of the entire body out of curiosity?

Gus I appreciate the desire to help but I like the density, lack of noise and tones of the original and I think you just cloned out the manits' legs :eek:
Although I do like the big dark stick or leg gone.

Robert
I have quite a few of the whole body but for those the background is too distracting (off a steeply inclined dry south facing meadow with plenty of grasses, blue and yellow flowers) so that they only would serve as documentary what this Empusa pennata, a mantis species from the south of France, looks like. Yes, Gus has cloned out the second pair of legs and IMHO he has overdone the sharpening a bit (only too natural because the image was already sharpened). I have already applied several passes of a smart sharpening and was ambivalent about the tradeoff between sharpening stronger and the appearance of sharpening artefacts like the halos that already appear on the top of the "claw".
This insect is a whopping 8-10cm in length and was a treat to photograph, this image is no crop by the way, it's simply at the full 1:1 my lens allows... The dark stick is still there in my original image because it was the perch the mantis was hanging from and I am not so easily swayed to remove such an item from my images (maybe one of my biggest fallacys is trying to keep my editing to an absolute minimum)...
regards
Karl Günter

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Karl,
I'm with Ed on this one...........even though I knew what it was........the upside down look doesn't work for me here. It may be because we don't actually see the perch it is hanging from. I am actually OK with Gus's leg amputation, especially the brighter OOF one, but since you are not comfortable with that sort of thing the only other solution I may recommend is to turn it 180 degrees.......even if it wasn't that way originally.......so that the viewer relates to the image a bit better.