
Originally Posted by
Chris Starbuck
Chris,
You've already identified the things that could have been a little better. The only one that bothers me is the bright flower at right. Apart from that, this is a very nice dragon image. The basic composition, straight on from above the dfly, wings essentially horizontal, centered left-right, is pretty classic. I see a lot of published (calendars, books, web) professional dfly images that use this composition. It can be a bit stronger if the dfly isn't quite centered vertically, but really to do that you have to back off a bit and leave the dfly a bit smaller in the frame; a matter of taste, and what you're trying to show. A little bit of diagonal to the wings can also be stronger, but ... taste.
A question about the specular highlights: Were you using flash, or were these just from sunlight? Either way, a diffuser would soften them a bit, if you prefer an image without strong highlights. This is another thing I think is a matter of taste, and again, I see a lot of published pro dfly images with the same sort of specular highlights.
Thinking a little more about the bright yellow flower, I tried a couple things in PS to see if I could make it less distracting, without removing it altogether. A simple duplicate layer set to multiply, and masked to affect only the FG flower and lighter areas of the BG didn't seem to work for me; it darkened those areas but also increased the saturation, which left them just as distracting. I think some direct tweaking of saturation and lightness (by channel) followed by selective weak burning actually reduces the distraction. [I reduced yellow sat & lightness by 7 & 10 respectively, and increased sat by 10 in the red, blue, & cyan channels.] What do you think?
Chris