Fireweed with Visitor

[Marylynne_Diggs]

I’m sharing another image of a fire weed blossom with one of its regular guests. This was cropped by a fair margin, so I’m eager to know whether it still works, holds up to expert scrutiny, etc.

As always, I’m eager for feedback on composition, processing, you name it. I also appreciate honest yawns of boredom if an image just isn’t grabbing you.

Any pertinent technical details:

Canon 7d with 100mm L macro

You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.

[Dennis_Plank]

It grabs me, Marylynne. Superb detail in the bee and the flower, so it’s definitely holding up well to the crop. I like the background a lot. If there’s not a lot of ugly stuff around it to contend with, I do think a slightly looser crop would also work well.

[Marylynne_Diggs]

Thanks, Dennis. I like the bg too. I attached two shots for you to see what I cropped out on the left especially:

1. Edges with slightly larger crop, where you can see in-plane blossoms intruding and some distracting light on the stem. I could paint some of that shaded magenta onto the lighter magenta and add space at the top and bottom of the image, More to the left gets challenging, though I have been known to use the heal spot function to copy good bokeh over bad.

2. Screen shot of what I cropped from (and yes, it’s seriously messy gardening, as is common with fireweed). I did use a tripod, so I had to have a wide enough field of vision to capture various landings, and then crop. The fireweed tends to move in the slightest breeze too, so while it’s my favorite spot my garden to shoot, it’s also challenging.

[Dennis_Plank]

Thanks for explaining the constraints so well, Marylynne. I like the slightly looser crop and I think it would be easy enough to take some of the nice background to smooth over the denser magenta.The bit of light area at the base of the flower does draw my eye a bit, but as you said,it could be pretty easily fixed. Either way it’s a lovely image.

[Bill_Leggett]

Marylynne, that’s pretty good detail from such a large crop.

[Marylynne_Diggs]

I was surprised too!

[Bill_Fach]

Marylynne: A testimony to the precision of 100mm macro lenses. Love the detail in the bee especially and think your original crop works well. >=))>

[Phil_Hodgkins]

Marylynne, there is another method that works well with OOF objects or hues in the background—the content aware move tool. First select the object you wish to remove with the CR tool and move it wherever you wish to place it. Check the completion icon, which leaves the selection at another location. Go to the History log with history paint selected and click on the box to the left of and just above the beginning of the content aware move.Then go back to the desktop with the History Brush activated and paint over the selection. Deselect, and you are done.