Visit to the Butterfly House

[purplehaze]

I finally got there with my macro yesterday and had a delightful time; will be going back for sure.

These are among the best I have processed so far. If you have any C&C to make, please don't hesitate. I did my best to mind my reds, and I think I am ready for the next lesson.

#1


#2
I think I need to make the wings brighter and more contrasty on this one.


#3
I think I will wait and see if anyone notices what I do (apart from the unfortunate shadow).


#4


#5


#6


Thanks for looking.

[JPS]

Hi Janis,
just one word from me: WOW

[ggt]

I've drawn a lot of butterflies and studied them quite a bit. It's easy to get lost in their wings. I'm jealous!!!! These are beautiful.

[jprzybyla]

Hello Janis, greetings from Florida. Wonderful captures, nice detail and color. They are species of butterflies I try to photograph in Florida. The first is a Zebra Longwings, my only suggestion there would be to use the spot healing brush to clean up the white spot on one of the flower petals. Other than that, you minded your reds, fantastic images.

[terrib]

I really love that first monarch. The sharpness of the butterfly and the flower is wonderful!

[rpcrowe]

Janis... Absolutely lovely images...

[Mike Buckley]

Gorgeous set, Janis! Really terrific!

I wonder if I can convince you to allow more space in #4 at the left and top of the butterfly. In #2, the first thing that I saw was the bright color of the oranges and the bright pink background. Perhaps tone them down a bit to help emphasize the butterfly's wing.

[Loose Canon]

Hi Janis,

We have one of those here in my neck of the woods. And believe it or not I have been talking all week about going to have a visit.

I'm not going to have the time now for a while but when I do I hope I can do even half as well as you have done.

Very nice work!

[Michaela]

These are lovely. No 4 was my favourite

[Digital]

Janis, wonderful photos. Bruce

[purplehaze]

Wow, I'm kind of overwhelmed by your responses. Thank you all for your kind remarks. Guess it means I'm actually progressing!

Thanks for the ID, Joe. I was meaning to look them up, but you have saved me some of the trouble. I will see what I can do about that white spot with my Aperture tools. I confess I was being lazy.

Richard, I am honored. As one of my teachers, you can take your share of the credit for these.

Mike, you absolutely could convince me about #4, but there is no more room to take at the top, which is why I cropped in at the side. I could not bring myself to cut off any of the wing, but if you think that would make it stronger... any suggestion welcome. I will give #2 another go in a day or two. Was up half the night processing these and a bunch of other stuff and am kind of burnt out for the time being.

I hope you can get to your butterfly house soon, Terry. Ours is wonderfully laid out for photography; there was very little that was beyond the reach of my 105 mm.

Again, thanks for your encouragement, all.

[Mike Buckley]

Mike, you absolutely could convince me about #4, but there is no more room to take at the top

It would be really easy to expand the size of the canvas and clone the background into the expanded area. If you have never done that before, once you do it the first time you'll realize that it's a snap.

[purplehaze]

It would be really easy to expand the size of the canvas

I assume that is a PS trick. I just have Aperture 3 and the Nik Collection. Do you know whether you can do that with GIMP?

[Mike Buckley]

I don't use GIMP (though that may change soon) but I did find this piece that explains how to do it at least in Version 9.13: http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_boo...nvas-size.html

I also saw that GIMP has a clone tool.

[purplehaze]

Thanks, Mike. The arguments in favour of GIMP keep building. I see in the GIMP news that they are working on making the interface more user-friendly, which is good news to me.