Green Damsel

[Christopher Miller]

I took this shot this past summer during my "damselfly period" and only got around to processing it recently. Any comments and suggestions would be most appreciated.

Olympus SP-550 UZ
f5.0 @ 1/60, ISO 100, -0.7 EV
Aperture priority mode, pattern metering, cloudy WB
Processed in PS CS2; cropped, curves adjustment, slight saturation boost, noise reduction, cloned out a grass stem and a few dark areas from the BG, and toned down the light areas in the BG a bit

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Christopher. Nice details! Awesome species as well. Do you happen to know it's name? It resembles a species we get here in Holland. I like the green on green and the position of the damselfly in the frame (pointing nicely into the LL corner). I do feel that the BG is a little too busy, mainly because of the bright green spots all around. I also think you have a little too much empty space to the right of the perch. Some people will object to the diagonal of the perch ending in a corner. By cropping from the right, you will solve 2 problems at once. You'll have to adjust the position of the damselfly for composition in that case.

[Julie Kenward]

Christopher, nice details! I looked at this and my initial thought was "wow, that DF really blends in with the BG." Then I realized it's because the entire image was so oversaturated in yellow. Try pulling back the yellow channel with either saturation/hue sliders or with color balance and see if you don't think it helps push him out front a little bit more.

Shallower aperture would have got less plant in the BG but probably would have sacrificed the nice details as well. What lens did you use?

[Christopher Miller]

Thanks Jules and Jerry! I appreciate the comments.

Jules, I pulled back the yellow channel as you suggested and I think you're right that it helps the DF stand out more. Thanks for the suggestion. Since my camera is a bridge camera, I don't have a choice of lenses. This shot was taken using the super macro mode with an equivalent focal length of about 58-59mm.

Jerry, I tried your idea of cropping some off the right, but personally I didn't like how it looked.

[Vida van der Walt]

Hi Christopher. Beautiful image with lovely detail and soft light. I like the extra space on the right as I personally always prefer space for the insects to look into.:)

[Christopher Miller]

Thanks Vida! That was my reasoning too.

Jerry, I forgot to answer your question. No, I don't know what species this is. Frankly I'm not too good at putting names with the different dragonflies and damselflies I've seen.

[Julie Kenward]

Great! I always love that golden yellow light but sometimes it does our subjects a disservice when it blends them in with the BG. Nice color correction, Christopher!

[Christopher Miller]

Thanks Jules! :)

[Ken Childs]

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p193/kjchilds/BPN/P6160242BPN3-NR.jpg

I prefer a softer BG so I thought some noise reduction might help. I ran it through Neat Image.

Let me know what you think.

[Christopher Miller]

Thanks Ken, that does look a bit better. I'll give it a try myself.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Ken, that makes a huge difference! Since I also work with a bridge camera, which produces a lot of noise, I immediately downloaded the Neatimage demo version. Worked astoundingly well with some noisy ISO-200 (which I try to avoid as much as possible) images. Thanks for showing!