The delicate beauty of a butterfly

[JBW]

[James G]

Very nice!
I would crop in much closer for the butterfly. The foliage and the other brown areas in the backgound are a distraction for me. Closer in, I think the structure in the leaves will then provide interest that complements the composition, and the delicacy of the brown shades in the wings and the eye will be enhanced.

[Ziggy]

Nice markings on this butterfly.

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[Geoff F]

I agree with James about a crop; but not too tight.

[Wandjina]

I would also crop

[JBW]

Very nice!
I would crop in much closer for the butterfly. The foliage and the other brown areas in the backgound are a distraction for me. Closer in, I think the structure in the leaves will then provide interest that complements the composition, and the delicacy of the brown shades in the wings and the eye will be enhanced.

That could work but it is not shot with a macro lens. if I go in closer and can't scale i will loose whatever clarity is there.

[JBW]

Very nice.

[JBW]

I agree with James about a crop; but not too tight.

I might get in a bit closer but detail will suffer.

[JBW]

I would also crop

could be done but at the cost of the detail.

[James G]

That could work but it is not shot with a macro lens. if I go in closer and can't scale i will loose whatever clarity is there.

Hi Brian, you are right of course that cropping and then resizing the cropped image can lead to unpleasant artefacts and reduced clarity if pushed too far.

I know a little about Gimp and it does have quite good upsizing algorithms. I have no knowledge of Gimpshop, except that it is a version if Gimp with a 'GUI wraparound' to make it look like Photoshop. If it has no scaling function then you do have a problem.
Assuming it does, resizing the image cropped along the lines I have suggested, should not result in significant loss of detail. (I'm assuming here that you are primarily processing for screen presentation.)

As a test I'd suggest zooming in on the existing image to simulate doubling the image size. If the detail is still good then cropping, and then resizing with some careful sharpening to compensate for the softening that occurs when you upsize, should be reasonably effective.

[jcuknz]

That could work but it is not shot with a macro lens. if I go in closer and can't scale i will loose whatever clarity is there.

Scale is not a word I associate with a photograph so am puzzled because even a tight crop with a touch, just a touch, of sharpening has better clarity than the original ... but where do you get all that noise from? I can see it in the original so it is not from my sharpening. Your belief in a macro lens is quite unjustified. I wish I had all the lovely wild life here. Apart from a white cabbage eater I have not seen a butterfly for years.
When I visited a Butterfly House some years back .....


edit. Having read James's comment I mention I used PSP [ of course ] and cheap older versions are to be found on Amazon ... anything from v8 onwards will be great ... with later versions X means ten so X3 is version 13 ... mine was exceptionally cheap at US$15 plus P&P.
Not that much missing compared to v16 which I now use.

edit 2 ... Further thoughts ... I think you should explore the use of your on-board flash ... bearing mind that the lens /lenshood may cast a shadow over the bottom of the picture. which should help with your shaking so long as the balance between flash and ambient light is such that you do not get a double image but for CU's the flash should permit the use of smaller apertures which coupled with sync shutter speed should minimise the effect of ambient light.

[JBW]

Hi Brian, you are right of course that cropping and then resizing the cropped image can lead to unpleasant artefacts and reduced clarity if pushed too far.

I know a little about Gimp and it does have quite good upsizing algorithms. I have no knowledge of Gimpshop, except that it is a version if Gimp with a 'GUI wraparound' to make it look like Photoshop. If it has no scaling function then you do have a problem.
Assuming it does, resizing the image cropped along the lines I have suggested, should not result in significant loss of detail. (I'm assuming here that you are primarily processing for screen presentation.)

As a test I'd suggest zooming in on the existing image to simulate doubling the image size. If the detail is still good then cropping, and then resizing with some careful sharpening to compensate for the softening that occurs when you upsize, should be reasonably effective.

it does indeed have a scaling tool. But so far I have onkly used it for downsizing

[JBW]

Scale is not a word I associate with a photograph so am puzzled because even a tight crop with a touch, just a touch, of sharpening has better clarity than the original ... but where do you get all that noise from? I can see it in the original so it is not from my sharpening. Your belief in a macro lens is quite unjustified. I wish I had all the lovely wild life here. Apart from a white cabbage eater I have not seen a butterfly for years.
When I visited a Butterfly House some years back .....


edit. Having read James's comment I mention I used PSP [ of course ] and cheap older versions are to be found on Amazon ... anything from v8 onwards will be great ... with later versions X means ten so X3 is version 13 ... mine was exceptionally cheap at US$15 plus P&P.
Not that much missing compared to v16 which I now use.

edit 2 ... Further thoughts ... I think you should explore the use of your on-board flash ... bearing mind that the lens /lenshood may cast a shadow over the bottom of the picture. which should help with your shaking so long as the balance between flash and ambient light is such that you do not get a double image but for CU's the flash should permit the use of smaller apertures which coupled with sync shutter speed should minimise the effect of ambient light.

I have dabbled with the flash. I use scaling for two reasons. One is that I have a slow upload speed and anything over about 2500 pixels wide and deep takes way too long to upload.

The second, perhaps mistaken belief i have is that if i scale down a shot the clarity and detail is often enhanced.
B.

[jcuknz]

I have dabbled with the flash. I use scaling for two reasons. One is that I have a slow upload speed and anything over about 2500 pixels wide and deep takes way too long to upload.

Yes I need to do that for panoramas where a series of 16Mp files is too big for the latest versions of PSP.
Now I think I understand what you mean by scaling which I would call re-sizing

The second, perhaps mistaken belief i have is that if i scale down a shot the clarity and detail is often enhanced.
B.

It appears so but when you look closely it is gone again
The butterfly[2] looks good but with the same blurring/sharpening the [1] would match it .... noise largely gone but blurring the foreground of [2] could help, simulating a narrow DoF. What is that light area underneath [2]?
edit
Looking at [1] I see it there too so not an editing problem as I first thought
[1] after doing what you said you did .....


edit2 forgot, wings needed sharpening and forgot, missed his left antenae

[JBW]

Yes I need to do that for panoramas where a series of 16Mp files is too big for the latest versions of PSP.
Now I think I understand what you mean by scaling which I would call re-sizing


It appears so but when you look closely it is gone again
The butterfly[2] looks good but with the same blurring/sharpening the [1] would match it .... noise largely gone but blurring the foreground of [2] could help, simulating a narrow DoF. What is that light area underneath [2]?
edit
Looking at [1] I see it there too so not an editing problem as I first thought
[1] after doing what you said you did .....


edit2 forgot, wings needed sharpening and forgot, missed his left antenae

Gimp calls it a scaling tool. I like what you have done but it is just a tad harsh.
B.