Damsel

[Ian Cassell]

Canon 7D
Sigma 100-300mm f/4 @ 300mm
1/2000 sec f/9 ISO 640 HH
Some crop and sharpening in CS5 NR in Noiseware Pro

[Paul Lagasi]

Ian ....nice bluet, pose is nice, I'd probably remove the white from the from and give the head another round of sharpening..but with a 300 hand held well done

[Julie Kenward]

Ian, I really like the DOF and the composition here but I noticed the eye was a bit blurry so I downloaded the image to see if I could tweak it a bit. The first thing I did was open it and do an auto levels adjustment and bam! The whole thing popped with color!

I also cloned over the lighter area in the blurred part of the BG just below the dragonfly (df). Final step was a bit of extra sharpening on the eye - it's still a bit too blurry - but a little better.

Here's the final...

[Ian Cassell]

Wow, thanks so much for doing that! I never use the auto-levels, but I think I'm going to have to start now!

[Mike Moats]

Hey Ian, I like the adjustments Jules made. I think the the space behind this guy should have been place in front so he is looking into the frame rather then out of the frame. Nice details and DOF.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Ian,
I'm with Mike on this one with the space and for me a pano crop would just emphasize the shape of the DF even more.

[Ken Childs]

Ian I agree with the others that the open space should be in front of the bug but since you already have it as photographed, Roman's suggestion of a pano crop might work best. Jules' edit looks great but I'm betting that the color of the bug in the OP is closer to reality.

Auto levels works great sometimes and it doesn't hurt to give it a try. Much of the time it goes way overboard but lowering the opacity of the adjustment layer can fix that. It's not a fix-all but it's always worth a try, IMO.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

I agree with a pano crop and might run some NR. Nice low angle and good for HH.