Accepting Geoff's opinion I get up close and personal with a 'look like a wasp' fly

[JBW]

[deetheturk]

Great capture B

[bnnrcn]

Superb Brian

[ClaudioG]

Geoff's opinion has helped you create one of my favourite images from you Brian. No distracting BG of leaves and Branches, great texture in flower and fly. Only little issue it seems a little underexposed on my screen.

But yes..this is my favourite one from you. The subject is clear and I have no doubt.

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[JBW]

Geoff's opinion has helped you create one of my favourite images from you Brian. No distracting BG of leaves and Branches, great texture in flower and fly. Only little issue it seems a little underexposed on my screen.

But yes..this is my favourite one from you. The subject is clear and I have no doubt.

Thank-you.

[Ken Curtis]

Looks great, Brian.

One small suggestion is to lighten the darker areas because much of the bee is dark on my monitor.

[JBW]

Looks great, Brian.

One small suggestion is to lighten the darker areas because much of the bee is dark on my monitor.

hmmm, I have adjusted my monitors with the CiC program but maybe I need to do it again?

[PhotoRob]

Nice shot, have you considered focus stacking? Could get that entire bee into focus...

[JBW]

Nice shot, have you considered focus stacking? Could get that entire bee into focus...

if my understanding is correct I would need multiple shots to focus stack. This is a one of a kind hand held.

[Rita]

Excellent Brian.

[JBW]

Excellent Brian.

Thanks, I was thinking a while back that I might need a better camera. Seems I just need more skill.

[PhotoRob]

if my understanding is correct I would need multiple shots to focus stack. This is a one of a kind hand held.

Correct, you would have to take multiple shots; for next time!

[Letrow]

Nice shot Brian. I like the fact that it is handheld. Good lighting will help you out with that. If you are really getting into macro you could look at other lenses, but for these subjects this works quite well.

[JBW]

Nice shot Brian. I like the fact that it is handheld. Good lighting will help you out with that. If you are really getting into macro you could look at other lenses, but for these subjects this works quite well.

To look into other lenses would mean I would need to look into another camera. My low end Fuji Finepix does not accept other lenses.

[ajohnw]

There is a way you could brighten up this image in GIMP Brian if you want to. It uses levels, brightness/contrast and sharpen.

There are 2 sliders in the levels control. The input one has a black, grey and white pointer and the output just back and white. On the input one move the white point slider past the "junk" in the histogram at the end. The wanted part ends where the main light level curve falls to zero. Then set the output to black 30 white 220. The image will brighten up and look a little flat as the dynamic range has been compressed. Then move the input grey point to maximise definition in the wasp. This is a delicate adjustment. Then move to brightness / contrast and bring the insect back up with the contrast control and a little increase in brightness.

Looking at the spikes in the histogram these may have been caused by the processing you have already done. In that case it might pay to start with the original image. In that case set the input sliders to either end of the histogram and leave the output at 0 and 255. Then adjust the input grey point for best results. If to dark flat etc then do as above with the output slider and contrast etc.

The output slider effectively sets where the tones coming in finish up being placed so moving the black up brightens but will always reduce contrast so if that needs to be restored the white end has to be moved as well to leave room for contrast adjustments.

This is the sort of thing this can do. I used smart sharpen with default settings. There are other ways of doing the same thing but this is probably simpler.



John
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[JBW]

There is a way you could brighten up this image in GIMP Brian if you want to. It uses levels, brightness/contrast and sharpen.

There are 2 sliders in the levels control. The input one has a black, grey and white pointer and the output just back and white. On the input one move the white point slider past the "junk" in the histogram at the end. The wanted part ends where the main light level curve falls to zero. Then set the output to black 30 white 220. The image will brighten up and look a little flat as the dynamic range has been compressed. Then move the input grey point to maximise definition in the wasp. This is a delicate adjustment. Then move to brightness / contrast and bring the insect back up with the contrast control and a little increase in brightness.

Looking at the spikes in the histogram these may have been caused by the processing you have already done. In that case it might pay to start with the original image. In that case set the input sliders to either end of the histogram and leave the output at 0 and 255. Then adjust the input grey point for best results. If to dark flat etc then do as above with the output slider and contrast etc.

The output slider effectively sets where the tones coming in finish up being placed so moving the black up brightens but will always reduce contrast so if that needs to be restored the white end has to be moved as well to leave room for contrast adjustments.

This is the sort of thing this can do. I used smart sharpen with default settings. There are other ways of doing the same thing but this is probably simpler.



John
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My problem with lightening the fly is that I would glare the leaf. I did do pretty much what you suggested but perhaps with not enough care?

[JBW]

There is a way you could brighten up this image in GIMP Brian if you want to. It uses levels, brightness/contrast and sharpen.

There are 2 sliders in the levels control. The input one has a black, grey and white pointer and the output just back and white. On the input one move the white point slider past the "junk" in the histogram at the end. The wanted part ends where the main light level curve falls to zero. Then set the output to black 30 white 220. The image will brighten up and look a little flat as the dynamic range has been compressed. Then move the input grey point to maximise definition in the wasp. This is a delicate adjustment. Then move to brightness / contrast and bring the insect back up with the contrast control and a little increase in brightness.

Looking at the spikes in the histogram these may have been caused by the processing you have already done. In that case it might pay to start with the original image. In that case set the input sliders to either end of the histogram and leave the output at 0 and 255. Then adjust the input grey point for best results. If to dark flat etc then do as above with the output slider and contrast etc.

The output slider effectively sets where the tones coming in finish up being placed so moving the black up brightens but will always reduce contrast so if that needs to be restored the white end has to be moved as well to leave room for contrast adjustments.

This is the sort of thing this can do. I used smart sharpen with default settings. There are other ways of doing the same thing but this is probably simpler.



John
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My problem with lightening the fly is that I would glare the leaf. I did do pretty much what you suggested but perhaps with not enough care?

[ajohnw]

Most adjustments are sensitive Brian and it's easy to whack things about and miss the best settings. The other problem with this one is that the full results can't be seen until it's all done. When using levels like this you have to bear in mind that you will be increasing the contrast and that often means that the brightness will need increasing as well.

What I did in reality was use the black point output to set brightness, as the input histogram was full I then decided to remove some of the bright end with the input white point that didn't appear to be doing much - probably processing artefacts. I then adjusted the input grey point for best detail in the insect. Looked like it needed more contrast so then knocked back the white point output to leave room for that which meant playing with the grey point slider again.

Not sure if you use the history window but if you open that under dockable windows you will see a list of operations that you have done. If you click on one it will take things back to there - or forwards again so that you can see what the effects have done. BUT if you back step and then do another operation from there it will clear the newer ones and start again from that point. Not much use on this one as a mistake at levels means back to the original but going back and forth when you find you end up too bright should help get the levels right.

The usual way of using levels - perfect exposure and ideal dynamic range etc is to set the input back and white to span the histogram and leave the output as is. Then slide the input grey point about for best contrast/apperance. This is the point to start thinking about what else to do here - brighten - leave room for more work - bearing in mind that if the black input has been slid right things can be brightened by moving it to the left again. Converse at the bright end of the input. Auto will tend to go the perfect exposure etc way, often not ideal but you can still adjust what it comes up with.

On thing worth adding about most adjustments. The GIMP uses dockable windows so that on levels for instance the width of the window can be stretched as far as needed making fine adjustments a lot easier. Same with curves as that can be really sensitive. If your using it in single window mode you'll probably find that they can be dragged out of that window and enlarged as desired, adjust shot and then dragged back in. Actually I'm fairly sure this can be done on PS for the same reason.

You could do the same thing with curves and then mess with contrast. That look like this but the black points in and out have been left the same. It might pay to brighten these up by adding more points and moving the black end to the right and even upwards as well. The more points the trickier it gets as you can see from the screen shot but contrast can be controlled as well. The line marked 199 was obtained by clicking on the brightest yellow - that doesn't want brightening at all as it goes white rapidly. The more points version would take a while to get right.



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John
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