Monarch perching on the good flowers

[Jack Breakfast]

Greetings, fine folks! I am a sucker for backlit scenes such as this...I enjoy the way the colors pop when you expose so as to compensate for all that nasty bright light! The presented image didn't get much in the way of post-processing, but I do believe this is the right forum for an image such as this. Anyhow, I'd be eager to hear your thoughts and ideas, comments and lifestyle-tips...
Many thanks for your consideration...
Also: what flowers are these, does anyone know?

[Paul Lagasi]

Jack this is a good base image, I like the high key look....its easier for me to show you than tell you, the changes I'd make...have a look tell me what you think.
I just removed the OOF bits, the leaf on the wing and the branch that ran off the canvas.....

I check out your website...some interesting images

[Jack Breakfast]

Thanks Paul, I appreciate it. I was looking to possibly remove the leaf that touches the butterfly but didn't really know how to do that seamlessly...any chance you could illuminate me on that?

[Anita Bower]

I like this look a lot! The white provides a clean bg for the flower and butterfly. The position of the butterfly is just right, and stands out nicely. The cloning done by Paul is the only changes I would make. This is some type of Thistle. Beautiful work!

[Arthur Morris]

I like the high key look. I wish that I had seen Paul's excellent repost before I went to work.... NIK Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast on the butterfly only with a contrast boost followed by contrast mask sharpening.

[Jack Breakfast]

Thanks very much...Paul, I really do like your repost, and I'd like to thank you for it. I don't like losing the OOF bits of the thistle (thanks, Anita!) but I love that you lost the bits that go off-canvas. My only nitpick is this: as flowers don't really end that way, that particular area of the image now looks un-natural. That may be a ridiculous thing for me to point out, given the high-key and un-natural look here anyhow. What I'd love to figure out is how to cut that greenery off naturally...end the thing with a flourish or something like that? I'm not sure that I'm explaining myself well, as I'm quite out of my element when talking about flowers and foliage! Anyhow, I'm very impressed that you were able to remove the leaf from the butterfly and make it look like it was never there at all...
Thanks to Artie for the repost as well...one day I'll shell out for the NIK software but for now I'm still on Photoshop CS, so I don't think it can happen for me...
All the best, folks!

[Jack Breakfast]

Greetings again...I've tried my hand at a repost...hmm...it might be closer to what I'm looking for, but I'm really not sure...my weirdbeard barebones solution may work or may not! I can't know! Thanks again!

[Mark Fuge]

Welcome to OOTB Jack.

Nice image and application. The above comments are good.

If it were mine, I might clone back the break in the upper branch. Other than that, Paul covered it.

One trick that I use to make detail adjustments, clone, cuts, etc. is to blow up the image to the maximum size and use a reasonably large (Based on area to be modified) work tool to do the cutting or cloning.

As for cloning, use a section close to the area to be cloned as the copy area. That way the lighting will be consistent on the area. Also use a small opacity setting, less than 10% usually works for me. You have to go over the area a few more times, but you can control the work better to make it match the surrounding area.

For cutting, by blowing up the image, you can cut individual pixels until it looks good. Take your time and go from normal to blow up a few times, to review the effect, while you work.

[Jack Breakfast]

Good advice, Mark...I'll spend more time on this later, but I think I might be pleased with this one here...can't thank you enough, all of you good folks...

[denise ippolito]

Jack, I love the high key look, Pauls repost with the added boost by Arthur is nice and I agree that a tiny bit more extending from the cloned area would be good. I think that you reposts have put the BF too dead centered and the image lost a little balance (of course that is just my opinion). Beautiful image, very appealing.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Jack, great suggestions given above...this looks very appealing backlit. Nice work!

[Indranil Sircar]

Very nice composition, Jack! Love the backlit effect. Excellent thread with good suggestions! TFS.

[Jack Breakfast]

I am a fan of all you little birdweasels! This is a great forum! Lots of helpful stuff here! many thanks for the kind words and a huge thanks to Mark for my first lesson in cloning/cutting...I am very new to PP work but my brain is relatively agile and I am a swift learner! Again: my deepest gratitude.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Jack, I find them all appealing because I love the high key effect. (And I love your website)

[Jack Breakfast]

Cheryl, many thanks. That means a lot. I'm a great fan of "The Little Prince" too...