Monarch Butterfly

[Christopher Miller]

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m244/CAMiller290/BPN/P8020051ResizeWeb.jpg

Recently reworked this shot of a monarch butterfly from last summer. Any C&C are welcome!

Olympus SP-550 UZ
f4.5 @ 1/320, ISO 100, -0.3 EV
Program mode, pattern metering, auto WB, natural light
Processed in PS CS2; cropped, curves adjustment, saturation increase, shadow/highlight, noise reduction, and cloned out a few distracting spots in the BG

[Julie Kenward]

Beautiful monarch, Christopher. I do think there are two things that would make this even stronger. First, I opened this in PS and opened up the exposure adjustment layer. I moved the exposure slider to +.25 to brighten everything and then slid the offset slider to -0.017 and this helped pop the blacks in the image a bit more. To me, the left side of the butterfly looked a little washed out and fuzzy and this seemed to help.

The other issue is composition. This isn't bad because you have the clover and the head of the BF on the rule of thirds placement but more room on the right would have left more of the clover leaves in the image (some are cut off) and given the butterfly a little more room to move into. As the viewer, we like to think that the butterfly is heading somewhere and seeing a bit more room on the right would have given us more of a mental picture to explore that.

Well done overall - just a few minor things could have made this even stronger. Keep it up and let's see what next summer brings!

[Christopher Miller]

Julie, thanks for your suggestions. I like what you did; it definitely made the image pop more. The only thing I don't like is that it looks to have blown the highlights a bit.

As to the composition, I do have more room to the right in the original. I'll post a revised version tomorrow.
Thanks again!

[Christopher Miller]

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m244/CAMiller290/BPN/P8020051ResizeWeb2.jpg

As promised here's my revised version with more room to the right. I applied the exposure changes suggested though I changed the settings slightly. I believe the settings I used were about +.23 for exposure, -0.015 for offset, and +1.06 for gamma. I also applied some S/H to tone down the highlights a bit.

How does this look?

[Julie Kenward]

Steve, I think it looks much better - not as cramped in the frame any more. One thing to watch for when you're shooting flowers is to try to find a natural break in the stem where the leaves are either all in or all out of the frame as you look at the stem vertically.

I do think the blacks on the outer edge of the butterfly wings are still a bit gray but that could just be my monitor or it could have been later in the season when the colors of the BF begin to fade a bit. It's a lovely image and I think your changes made it even better.