Went into the woods the other day to look for warblers (without a lot of success), but came across a clearing with a nicely lit thistle (someone correct me if I've gotten the species wrong). Several Tiger Swallowtails were hovering around. Took this at some distance with 400mm since I hadn't brought other lenses or extension tubes with me. In the frame with the best wing position, a second oof butterfly was on the LH bud, so I combined this with another frame that had the bud sans butterfly. I have better swallowtail images that are closer in with more detail, but I liked the thistle on this one and opted not to go for a tight crop on the butterfly. C&C appreciated.
Bill, I think you did very well here. You're right - it's pretty rare that you get a nice looking butterfly on a perch this nice - I would have left the whole plant in as well! You do have a darker area in the ULC - might try raising the lower tones on the image and then masking back in the rest of the original so they are closer in tone throughout the image. I personally use the Nik Software Viveza to do these kinds of tasks and love it for this very kind of correction - it will let you raise or lower the tonal ranges (among other things) in specific areas or color ranges without the use of masks...quick in and out and back to PS!
Thanks Jules. I didn't get any more of the plant in the image; I cropped to vert and just trimmed a bit off the top for comp. The dark area was almost a black hole in the original. I cloned in some of the olive tones to bring it up some, but perhaps could have done a little more without making it too uniform. I should look into Viveza. I also got a nice side view of the female Swallowtail on the same plant, and one of the male sitting on top, 3/4 view showing the whole blossom but without the wings fully opened, but I haven't processed those.
Hi Bill - very nice - like the composition and the open wings - agree with Jules re the dark area in the BG - I like the inclusion of the whole plant - tells more of the story than just seeing a tight crop of the butterfly.
Like it.
I really like the composition here Bill, in fact I like almost everything about the image. I would suggest a couple of small processing edits to raise it to the top: boost the saturation a little, and lightly burn the rear wings to reduce the brightness a bit. I tried these in Photoshop and it worked really well. Agree with the others about slight adjustments to the BG. Overall though I think this is an excellent image all round.
Thank you Lance, Peter and John. John-I've reposted to incorporate your helpful suggestions, brightening up the darkest part of the bg, burning parts of the wings and boosting the saturation. I tried not to overdo any of those interventions, but it definitely helps. I appreciate the comments and suggestions.
Pasture Thistle with Swallowtail
