Blue Tailed Damselfly

[Jonathan Ashton]

Canon 50D Canon 180mm macro Tripod

All comments welcome.

[Aidan Briggs]

Nice details and soft light. I like the BG too. I think the stem is a bit overpowering for the dragonfly though.

[Grahame Hamblin]

Great photo but like Aidan the stalk is to strong would almost crop out the left and blur.

[Julie Kenward]

Beautiful DF, Jonathan...but I do have to agree about the perch - and that's such a shame because everything is so wonderfully in focus and nicely exposed! If you do decide to rework it, I'd take off some from the left side and add canvas to the right - it feels a bit tight down at the far end of the DF.

[Peter Farrell]

Wonderful detail and color on the DF, but I agree about the perch overwhelming the subject.

[Allen Sparks]

Agree about the perch but I still think this is a great shot. excellent focus and DOF on the damselfly and great background.

[Markus Jais]

Great light and sharpness. Wonderful detail in the damselfly. I wish for a little more space on the right.

Markus

[Mike Fuhr]

Could you ad a bit more canvas on the right side to maybe lessen the tight feel of the df in the frame?

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks for the C&C everyone, I have ahad a look at re-composition but it is still on a relatively imposing grass seed head.:(

[Ken Childs]

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p193/kjchilds/BPN/Blue-Tailed-Damselfly_IMG_644-edit2.jpg

I agree with much of what has been said about this image but I don't agree that it's a lost cause. Jonathan you don't say what editor you use. This was all done in CS3.

I extended the canvas much more than I needed to and tilted it slightly to the left. Copied the center third of the seed head and pasted it to the blank area on the left. I then selected the left side of the image starting with the left third of the seed head and dragged it to the right to make the seed head thinner. The center section that I moved to the left was there so I could clone parts of it to help cover the center joining line of the seed head. Used the clone tool to extend the top and bottom of the seed head and used the smudge tool to extend the BG. It's not a perfect job but I didn't spend much time doing it. The seed head is still imposing when compared to the damsel but I think it looks better.

I wanted to do all of the editing in CS3 but for the heck of it, I tried making the seed head thinner using Liquid Resize and it worked like a charm so that's always an option.