Technically there is no After and Before Forum today as we are on a Christmas break but please check out Stacy’s blog for a special twist to next years format, especially if you are looking to join us in the new year.
Today I am going rogue and posting on our break but it is connected to last weeks picture of a battered butterfly.
At the end of last weeks post I said there was something missing and welcomed my readers to give some suggestion to what it may be.
Lore from Snows Fissures and Fractures, Emilio and Nic all commented about the the brightness and contrast and Nic in particular commented about cropping the image a bit more. I agreed that maybe there could be some changes in the brightness, although I was concerned that that making global adjustments would not work. I did agree that I could make some selective adjustments that would create a similar effect.
Robin noted that the image felt soft. I agreed with this as there was not the detail that I thought was in the image during editing.
I took the comments on board and decided to make some minor adjustments. The first adjustment meant in a way of going back to the drawing board. I created a virtual copy of the image and reset the settings in Lightroom. From here I went to Photoshop and used the Shake Reduction filter, this sharpened some of the finer details that were slightly blurred, creating a much sharper image.
Back in Lightroom I copied the original adjustments to the new shake reduced image and started to make some minor changes. I reduced the brightness overall and increased the shadow detail (adding more light) to the elliptical tool covering the butterfly.
With this adjustments the butterfly draws the eyes more and the overall image is much more pleasing.
Nic did surgest a tighter crop away from the flowers on the right. Personally I didn’t want to do it because the shot would lose the body of the butterfly.
This is a great example of why Anybody can take part in the After and Before Forum, not matter what your level because together we encourage, share and help each other. If you want to take part remember to head to Stacy’s blog to read how to take part as well as her post today where a new twist will be revealed.
I would like to know what you think about the image, you can do this by using the comment box below.
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Aperture64 
Very beautiful! I love this photo.
I don’t know how I missed this! My name is mentioned so many times… I’m so sorry. This edit looks great the darker tones and the shake reduction really sharpened this image. For the record, I may have gotten my left and right mixed up… I actually meant crop out the little white/pink flower on the Left… not crop the butterfly. But this is a nice edit. Thanks for taking my suggestions into consideration. 😀
On a separate note: I was originally trying to figure out if it was you that I discussed the grey layer for dodge and burn, and if so which post that was. If it wasn’t you, I’m not sure who it was… hmmm.
yep it was me, I think on the day night post I did last week, where I used a grey layer and set it to overlay and then low opacity brushes to dodge and burn.
I really was not happy with the original version and with your thoughts and others I was able to work out why.
I was trying to remember what you said you did… so I tried a transparent layer set to overlay and then painted various shades of grey and it worked out really well for targeting certain areas.