Mountain Ringlet

[Julie Brown]

Canon 40D, 300mm f4L IS, f5.0,1/250sec, 0EV,manual mode,pattern metering, HH
PP: Lightroom 2.6
Exposure: set black and white points
enhance clarity and vibrance
tone curve tweak
sharpening, NR
adjustment brush: selective sharpening, wing edge brightness reduction
post-crop vignette
clone tool to smooth out BG

shot in meadow along park road at Lac Luitel, near Chamrousee, French Alps, July 2009

I had trouble getting this image to save below 400kb. The background looks strange here because it uploaded at 24kb. I will repost it if I can.

[Julie Brown]

Repost of image above at 180kb

[Ken Childs]

Julie,

It's nice to see some of the Old World butterflies. :)

I don't have a lot of experience with LR but I'm pretty sure you should be able to do most of the following in that editor. I think this could stand to be a bit sharper. If you have the canvas, I think it would look better with more diagonal tilt and cloning out the white dust spots on the body and wings would help. The blade of grass is too bright and distracting to me so try darkening that.

What is this bfly perched on? It doesn't line up with either blade of grass.

[Julie Kenward]

The repost looks MUCH better! I love the green against the brown in this image - great color combo! I also really like how the grass crosses diagonally in the frame. This is one of those times where I think a square crop would also work, with each of the sides an equal length but the vertical is nice as well. You've got very nice details on the butterfly (bf)- might just clean up some of the tiny white dots along the top of this body to give it a really clean look. Really nice image, Julie!

[Julie Brown]

Thanks Ken and Jules, I appreciate your comments.

Last summer was my first trip to Europe and this was a new butterfly for me. When you first see them they look drab, but then you realize how beautiful they are. I hope I got the correct species ID.

I liked this image for the same reasons you do, Jules. I tried to take the brightness of the OOF grass blade down a bit, and did some selective sharpening on the body. The butterfly is perched on the crossing blades. I forgot to mention in the original post that I cloned out part of a front leg sticking out on the lower grass blade. Should I put it back for perspective? I think the white spots are worn areas on the wings (when I looked to ID this bug on the internet I saw photos with much darker wings), but I can try to clean them up a bit. I can also try the square crop. I will go back into LR and see if I can get better results and repost.

[Allen Sparks]

wondeful image Julie...I agree with the tilt suggestion (something I need to work on myself!). very nice detail.

[Julie Brown]

Thanks Allen, Ken, and Jules for your recommendations. I re-cropped the image, tilted it, sharpened it some more (hope not too much!), cloned out most of the dust spots, and toned down the grass blades. The dust spots did not seem to be so abundant on the other images I took of this butterfly. Could they be from the sensor? Opinions on this repost welcome!

[Charles Wesley]

Julie,

Final repost is very nice. Like the color, contrat and sharpness. The BF angle adds so much. Thanks for sharing....
________________
Charlie Wesley
St. Augustine Beach, FL

[Julie Brown]

I appreciate that Charles. Thanks for looking!

[Ken Childs]

I agree. The repost looks much better.

[Kerry Perkins]

Very nice Julie. The angle and geometry work really well with the rotation. Sharpening isn't even close to overdone IMO. Nice work!

[Anita Bower]

I think the angle of the butterfly in the repost is better. Interesting how a little change can make a bit difference. Cleaning it up a bit improved it also. I would like to see the blades of grass be less bright. The way the butterfly is facing in relation to those blades works well.

Is that hari/fur on the butterfly? It looks woolly! :)