Technically terrible but the Butterfly is 10/10 for colours

[JBW]

[Shadowman]

Easy to see what your challenges were (bit of dappled light, mostly in shade, however the lighting (minus the area receiving direct sunlight) should help enhance the butterfly colors. Was it a breezy day, you should have been to freeze the scene very easily?

[JBW]

Easy to see what your challenges were (bit of dappled light, mostly in shade, however the lighting (minus the area receiving direct sunlight) should help enhance the butterfly colors. Was it a breezy day, you should have been to freeze the scene very easily?

not particularly breezy but these Butterflies are rarely still. In one year of attempting to get a shot i have only had this time where there was any success at all. i managed three shots and this one was the best.

[Kodiak]

Technically terrible?

I think you are not fair to yourself!
Technically, the shot is not bad at all when considering you used a clever -2/3 EV.
If one adds the challenges John recognized, this is surprisingly good.

If you meant that the butterfly is not in a best position, yes… they won't stand still
very long… but then, this has nothing to do with the technique!

[JBW]

I think you are not fair to yourself!
Technically, the shot is not bad at all when considering you used a clever -2/3 EV.
If one adds the challenges John recognized, this is surprisingly good.

If you meant that the butterfly is not in a best position, yes… they won't stand still
very long… but then, this has nothing to do with the technique!

just because inquiring minds need to know... what is a 'clever -2/3 EV'?

[ajohnw]

You could do a bit more work on that Brian. Time for the GIMP gradient tool I suspect.



Load the image. There is a bit of a bug in the GIMP currently so right click on the layer and set add alpha channel. Not needed for this but some other tools eg erase wont work without it.

Then duplicate the layer and set it to softlight. You may want to play with the opacity of this later.

Then add layer at the top leaving the default settings - transparent. - select this layer - and set it to softlight

Then select the gradient tool and set FG to BG RGB, shape to radial and adaptive supersampling. I'm assuming FG is black.

Place the cursor on the centre of the butterfly and click and drag say to a point 1/2 way towards the side. Try several drag distance to see what happens. Each one will just over write the previous one I used just over 1/2 way to the vertical edge.

Play with the opacity of the duplicate image softlight layer to adjust to taste. I often add one and if not needed just set opacity to zero.

Select the gradient layer again and the dodge burn tool. The top of this image is already dark so to avoid darkening it more dodge that area of the gradient with it set to shadows. Set a brush size a lot larger than the top dark area and run it's edge just past and along the dark light boundary in one go if you can going right past the edges of the image. Just keep going over it until you can't see any change. To lighten it more if needed make use of a GIMP feature. Make the image layers invisible. You will see the gradient in all of it's glory and where you have dodged. If you run the dodge brush over it now it will have a stronger effect - once will probably be enough but again try and do it in one go to keep it even.

You can also dodge burn different bits of the gradient layer to darken or lighten the appearance of the underlying image. Dodging will reduce the effect of the gradient and burning intensify it. I dodge it a bit over the tips of the butterfly wings. The usual bold approach with a suitable size of brush works for this sort of thing.

John
-

[Kodiak]

just because inquiring minds need to know... what is a 'clever -2/3 EV'?

I was sure you did that purposely!

The exif says:

Camera: Fujifilm FinePix S4200
Lens: 4.3 mm
Exposure: Auto exposure, Aperture priority AE, 1/32 sec, f/3.1, ISO 100, Compensation: -0.67
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Date: June 24, 2014 8:30:39AM
Color Space: sRGB
Software: GIMP 2.8.10
Field Of View: 23.3 deg
File: 829 × 670 JPEG

[Kodiak]

You could do a bit more work on that Brian.

Absolutely right John…but the proposed rendition is, IMO, too saturated
so it don't look as natural.

[ajohnw]

Absolutely right John…but the proposed rendition is, IMO, too saturated
so it don't look as natural.

I pushed that aspect a bit but pointed out that Brian could knock the layer opacity down to zero if not wanted. If you think that one is saturated get your sun glasses out




Just giving Brian ideas.

The layer stack for that one was



Brian can see where I used a white or black brush also the eraser. The only problem with using the eraser is that undo is the only way to fix errors on the other hand it can usually be done boldly with a faded edge brush as can the other painting - except where I have brightened the tips of the wings. That needs a bit of care but not much at say 200% view.

Layer masks could be used instead of the eraser.

John
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[JBW]

I was sure you did that purposely!

The exif says:

Camera: Fujifilm FinePix S4200
Lens: 4.3 mm
Exposure: Auto exposure, Aperture priority AE, 1/32 sec, f/3.1, ISO 100, Compensation: -0.67
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Date: June 24, 2014 8:30:39AM
Color Space: sRGB
Software: GIMP 2.8.10
Field Of View: 23.3 deg
File: 829 × 670 JPEG

I suppose i could bluff right now but that was the camera.

[Kodiak]

…but that was the camera.

Not even my high end cameras would take such decision by themselves!
So… who set that compensation? …the devil? Oh, I know, your guardian angel… ;-)

[JBW]

Not even my high end cameras would take such decision by themselves!
So… who set that compensation? …the devil? Oh, I know, your guardian angel… ;-)

Some would say the devil is my guardian angel but that is another story. I just checked out my owners manual and apparently I did set the compensation. in Aperture priority when I darken things down (underexpose?) I am adjusting the compensation to a negative value.

There is an old joke in Canada... what do you call a person who speaks 3 languages? Tri-lingual! What do you call someone who speaks two languages? French Canadian! What do you call someone who only speaks one language? English Canadian. I don't speak English all that well and my tech talk is even worse! But i certaily did darken things down a bit to bring up the colours.