Monarch on Lantana

[Ken Childs]

Canon EOS REBEL T1i
Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS @ 340mm
Manual mode
1/320"
F16
ISO 200
Canon 430EX: On, Fired
HH
ACR and CS5

Cropped, cloned away leaf behind flower cluster, cloned away a white streak of fence line behind the bfly, blurred BG, SH, contrast, high-pass and smart sharpening.

[Julie Kenward]

Ken, as far as I can see, the butterfly is perfect! I sure wish that flower was prettier - it would have pushed this over the top for me. If this were mine, I think I'd try to lighten the darker area around the flower stem.

That really is an impressive image of such a beautiful bf!

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Ken. Another one of your striking butterfly images (and you got both antennae sharp! :S3: ). This is a great specimen giving you a nice pose. The sharpness, comp, and background are all excellent. My only comment is, like Jules, I would wish that the flower was more pristine - though this is still a very strong image!

[bhavya joshi]

Great.. You got both antenna.. Due to Wonderful BG.. The image.. Gets High rank.. Good macro ken..

[Ken Childs]

I completely agree about the flower but the butterfly looked so good in this shot, I had to share it!
Maybe I'll have a go at some flower painting....I don't think I'll be able to do a convincing job but I won't know until I try. :S3:

[Ken Childs]

I tried lightly painting over the brown areas on the flowers and it didn't look good at all so I tried using a 'replace color' adjustment and it definitely worked better. I selected the flower then selected the color of the brown areas and slightly changed the hue. It's not perfect but I think it looks better than it did in the op. Per Jules' suggestion, I also lightened the area around the stem.

106342

[Galliani Carlo]

beatiful shot with great DOF and beatiful colours
I would try the vertical