Success, a shot of the belly of the beast!

[JBW]

I was standing on a plastic stool, and I accidently brushed her web. She scooted out from behind the X at the center and I took 3 quick hand held shots. Luck with a little skill did the rest. From leg tip to leg tip she is about 3 Cm.

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[JBW]

Nicely done.

like I said luck with a bit of skill. But it did turn out well. And because of the advice here i was able to burn (tech talk is great) the window so that it didn't overpower the spider.
B.

[ajohnw]

There is another adjustment you should try on your images Brian - Levels. It's similar to curves but in some ways easier to use. I used it to increase the contrast of the insect.



The top slider is the input image and the outer 2 pointers are used to select what will go into the output image. The bottom slider sets where the selection will actually go. It's selecting based on brightness after a fashion. The mid pointer on the top slider sets the so called mid grey point. This will remain at 1 as the outer 2 are moved. Often that is fine but it can be moved around too, best try it rather than me try to explain.

So on this one I have "moved" 5 to 154 from the input to 5 to 255 in the output. So it has stretched the 149 in the input to 250 in the output making full use of the brightness range available. I set the black end of the output to 5 to brighten it a little - not that it needed that. When the image has most of the info at the black end like this one it's a case of moving the right hand top pointer inwards until things look correct. Then titivating the others. Sometimes the info is in the middle so both end pointer on the input need adjusting, or it might all be at the bright end so only the left one needs moving. Or some combination etc.

The output pointers can be left at 0 and 255. They have 2 uses. Sometimes further work such as dodging and burning might be needed. Taking dodging to brighten something if the bright parts are at 255 they can't be brightened further were as if 240 was used they could be. Same with the black end but the opposite way round. That end can have another use though. The black dark end of TFT monitors tends to be a bit crap so lifting that end by a small amount can help in that respect Also make it easier to see on monitors that aren't calibrated very well. It's not possible to help much with this but a bit can make blacks gain shape.

Normally it's probably best to try this adjustment 1st on any image. In this one you would find that you needed to burn the window more so may have to burn and adjust and start again a couple of times. There are ways round that. Layers and masks or the selection tools. The selection tools are fairly well documented on the web. In the GIMP all operations under colour only work on the whole image or selections. Most of the other facilities elsewhere do too - but odd ones may not. You could use the free select tool round the window excluding the spider leg and then use contrast/brightness to dim that down, invert the selection and then use levels on the rest of the image. The free selection tool just joins up mouse clicks with straight lines. Good enough for all sorts of things. Just use say a 200% or 400% view if there is any difficulty. The lasso selection tool is a more complicated to use but can follow any shape.

John
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[JBW]

I have been using levels but not in the way you describe. I shall give it a try. Thanks.