birdwing butterfly, playing with photoshop

LCPete

LCPete

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evening everyone its way too windy to go out so I've been playing with Photoshop:D

here's three versions of a birdwing butterfly
the first is just straight out of the camera with a vertical composition
The end of its abdomen is flesh coloured which I thought looked a bit odd so I had a google and found out how to change the colour to yellow
used the colour replacement too and sampled the colour from the yellow abdomen
pleased how it turned out (the second shot)

the third one I wondered what a landscape orientation would look like so I turned it slightly expanded the crop added a white border and added pixels into the white area using the content aware fill and cropped to landscape format
cheating:D slightly but turned out OK:)

t5dw.jpg


zhed.jpg



mdmc.jpg
 
I agree with Paul, all images are great but I like the final presentation you have gone with. My own personal choice would have been to leave the abdomen as it was though. I can't fault your "retouching" technique but I think the original colour was part of the specimen. I'm no butterfly expert so not sure if this is typical of the species and therefore important for identification, or if it was an abnormality it would add interest and I don't feel it detracts from the image significantly. Regardless, that's a personal choice and you have a terrific result!
 
Testudo Man said:
All great images (Im a big fan of butterflies myself) and cant wait to see our UK butterflies start emerging soon.

Whilst my editing skills are minimal(for the majority of my images) I can certainly appreciate other peoples editing, your 3rd image works very well.
Click to expand...
Thanks very much Paul I'm not really an expert on Photoshop or anything just had a go :)
Yes butterflies are my fav subject too
I'm really looking forwards to spring as well we have some nice sites up here in north wales not as many species though but I make the odd trip down South to see new ones
 
TimmyG said:
I agree with Paul, all images are great but I like the final presentation you have gone with. My own personal choice would have been to leave the abdomen as it was though. I can't fault your "retouching" technique but I think the original colour was part of the specimen. I'm no butterfly expert so not sure if this is typical of the species and therefore important for identification, or if it was an abnormality it would add interest and I don't feel it detracts from the image significantly. Regardless, that's a personal choice and you have a terrific result!
Click to expand...


Thanks Tim much appreciated :)
Yes you are probably right about the retouching I may well redo it with the butterfly as it was
I think it was a recently emerged one I've not noticed one like that before maybe they colour up as they age
 
While the recoloured butterfly might look "nicer", it no longer looks like what it is, a butterfly with a flesh coloured tip to its abdomen!

Having said that, the colour swap looks to be well done (which was the point of the exercise, I think?) so job done.
 
I've re-edited the last one its now as it was
I do see what you mean its back how nature intended and does actually look better:)
thanks very much everyone for the honest C&C its very much appreciated :)


zpek.jpg
 
Good info about what you did. Honest and useful feedback. Good response to the feedback. Excellent end result. Well done everyone. CC working well here. :)

(Well, ok, just one nitpick. The blacks look pretty featureless to my eye behind the eyes and points south. Is there any texture at all to be drawn out in that area? I find Lightroom isn't much good for deep recovery like this, but CS2 lets you dig deeper. I typically turn the Amount up very high, the Tonal Width very low (sometimes much lower than in this example) and I find it worth playing with the Radius too (typically turning it down from the CS2 default, shown here, of 30px). I try to give a hint of texture, just to take the edge off the blackness, to suggest that there is something in there. Something to play with perhaps - obviously the RAW should have more potential than this already processed JPEG.)


NOT MY IMAGE - LCPete butterfly - Deep shadow recovery in Photoshop by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
 
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Hi Nick thanks:)
Yes you are right there's not much detail in the blacks in the head area
Thanks for showing me shadow recovery in photoshop something I didn't know about
I may have overdone the black a bit when I converted the raw I used -20 on the slider will have another go

Will reconvert it again and have a play with the shadow recovery in photoshop
Its amazing what you can do in photoshop and I have only discovered a fraction of it
 
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