Old and new: rose of sharon

[DanK]

I've worked on a few of these off and on for days. Very tough. First, I kept getting enough wind to ruin stacks. Second, the lighting was generally not what I wanted. Third, I found a lot of processing artifacts, which I think were from imperfect alignment arising from movement, and they were a nightmare to remove. I didn't do a wonderful job of the last. Still, C&C welcome, as always.

[lesno1]

Nice job Dan well done

[billtils]

Very nice Dan. Like the way the colour of the background ties the "old" to the "new". The only opportunity for improvement I can suggest is to remove the greenery bottom left corner.

[Round Tuit]

Hi Dan,
This is really well done. I like how you captured the fine spider silk thread on the twig and on the old shell. The contrasting background are also very effective in highlighting the leaves and the shell. May I ask how many photos were stacked and what was the difference in focal distance between them?
I am also curious about the very smooth inside of the top front shell. Is that an area where Zerene could not find enough details or is the shell actually that smooth on the inside?

[Wavelength]

Beautiful

[DanK]

Thanks, all.

Andre--the inside of the shell is really that smooth. The in-focus area is perhaps 45mm deep, and the image is a composite of 10 photos. I probably could have done fewer.

Bill--I thought about the leaf at the bottom left. I decided to darken that area but to leave the leaf. It's coincidentally on the diagonal. I think I will try darkening it further, but I may also play with removing it.

I think I have decided that this is worth the additional time to do a final cleanup.