Playing with Macro Lens

[Clint Burleigh]

[Wirefox]

Hi Clint

I could be wrong (and often I am) but I suspect these images are straight from the Camera or nearly so. I like the compositions but they seem a little underexposed. I particularly like No3 but the focal point is the eye and for me it needs brightening and sharpening a little. I do not know your level of PP skill so I will play it safe and suggest what I would do with this image.
Use the magnetic selector to isolate the eye with a feather value of 10-15 pixels. Once selected use curves to brighten the eye area. Then use USM to sharpen the eye area to taste. I would normally suggest inverting the selection and using levels to increase the brightness and vibrancy of the skin tones. However there is very bright area above the nose. This actually may not require correction when the eye is sharpened since ones eye will be drawn away from that bright area immediately. If the skin tones do need brightening I use a proprietary script (for GIMP) that fixes overblown areas. This is not a cure all and it is advisable to merge the layers created by the overblown correction tool and use levels to take the resultant flatness out of the skin tones.

Steve

[Clint Burleigh]

I do appreciate the tips. The main point of my tenure in this forum is to improve my CS3 skills. The picture has minor adjustments made from Bridge. I believe my screen is at fault for the exposure. Thanks again!

[Clint Burleigh]

I could not fix the blown out skin.