Jerry van Dijk
09-03-2010, 01:15 PM
Another one from my short DSLR try-out. When clouds gathered and the light started to fade just before the rain, we encountered this Common Blue which looked like it had reached the end of its days (the first we saw on this track this year!). Because of the bad light conditions, I had to shoot wide open and the whole image ended up in faded colors. Furthermore, I wasn't sporting a macrolens, so I had to make a considerable crop.
I was about to throw it away when I thought of a little experiment, because the faded colors matched the life stage of this butterfly very well ;). I copied the butterfly in a separate layer, faded the BG image even more by desaturating it. Then I corrected the exposure on the separate butterfly, added saturation to bring up the colors and sharpened it. I then pasted the butterfly back in the BG image at 75% opacity. I cloned over the base of the perch so it wouldn't protrude directly from the frame.
This is how it turned out. Let me know what you think, I'm still not sure whether to like it or not....
Canon 400D, EF 70-200 @145mm, ISO 100, f/4, 1/320 sec, RAW.
ACR 5.0, PS CS4.
I was about to throw it away when I thought of a little experiment, because the faded colors matched the life stage of this butterfly very well ;). I copied the butterfly in a separate layer, faded the BG image even more by desaturating it. Then I corrected the exposure on the separate butterfly, added saturation to bring up the colors and sharpened it. I then pasted the butterfly back in the BG image at 75% opacity. I cloned over the base of the perch so it wouldn't protrude directly from the frame.
This is how it turned out. Let me know what you think, I'm still not sure whether to like it or not....
Canon 400D, EF 70-200 @145mm, ISO 100, f/4, 1/320 sec, RAW.
ACR 5.0, PS CS4.