Painted Lady

[Tell Dickinson]

Painted Lady Butterfly on a Buddlia bush...
http://www.wildlifewonders.co.uk/photo/albums/userpics/bpn-butterfly-garden3.jpg

...taken in my garden.

Canon 5D, 70-200 f2.8 + 44mm extension tubes @ 190mm, 1/500, f4.5, iso 400, HH

All comments good or bad appreciated :)

Tell

[Julie Kenward]

Very nice composition Tell! That dark purple butterfly bush blossom looks awesome against the lighter butterfly and green BG. Still, you might consider bringing some of the detail back in the darker areas with a little shadow/highlight adjustment or even some selective dodging.

Nice details on the butterfly...the face feels a little more OOF than the body so you might also try just a tad more selective sharpening in that area. Nice pose with the tongue out and a great side view of the butterfly!

[Dave Mills]

Hi Tell,Both the butterfly and flower are nicely positioned in the frame. Nicely muted backround and I agree with Jules about lightening areas of the flower.

[Fabs Forns]

Oh, but I love that curled proboscis :)

Plenty of detail on the big and sweet perch.

[Tell Dickinson]

Thanks everyone for the comments which are much appreciated.

I posted this because I wanted to see if there were any comments on the background :) It was originally the oof red brick front of my house, in effect I duplicated the original layer, masked the butterfly and buddleia and then reduced the red channel of the bg so that it was almost white and then changed the hue to green :) There are some artifacts in the bg due to compression that are not there on a bigger version.

Tell

[Christopher Miller]

Tell, Great PS work on the BG! I never would have guessed :). Great sharpness and pose on the butterfly. Agree on lightening the flowers.