Morpho adonis - first look

[augusthouse]

Morpho adonis - first look.

I saw a photograph of Morpho adonis on another member's website (Laurie) and was intrigued by the shape of the scales and some of their other magical qualities.

The first two images have been got at in post production; but I liked looking at them so decided to upload.







Craig

[dmillard]

Morpho adonis - first look.

I saw a photograph of Morpho adonis on another member's website (Laurie) and was intrigued by the shape of the scales and some of their other magical qualities.

The first two images have been got at in post production; but I liked looking at them so decided to upload.



Craig

Very nice Craig - magical is the appropriate word for these scales. But what do you mean by "got at in post production"?

David

[augusthouse]

David wrote:

But what do you mean by "got at in post production"?

got at: to apply additional adjustments beyond standard image requirements.
(I have often heard the term used by antique dealers in a derogative tone).

In this particular instance, I used an image enhancement filter that I have had for a number of years. Originally, it was known as KPT Equalizer - I believe Corel have it in one of their software suites now?

I usually only tweak a few of the software's parameters to see how it responds to certain types of image content. It's not so much a special effect filter; more of an enhancement, adjustment, sharpening tool.

The highlights need to be tamed and the shadows revealed (still working on that overall aspect)

A 20x objective on bellows @210 extension was used. Canon 50D for the first image and a Nikon D100 for the second image (pixel crop).


Craig

[augusthouse]

You may have noticed the 'noise' in these images. It was present prior to stacking and I have been exploring various causes and methods of dealing with it (most likely overlooking the obvious).

Redfield Perfectum noise reduction has been applied (47%) to both images (final image output after stacking) and the results are below. I'll explore Nik Software Dfine 2.0, Neat Image and other options over the course of the next couple of days.

Is it too much? Are the images looking a bit unrealistic or 'plastic'?

I was a bit heavy handed with the NR in these examples.

Is there some other approach that needs to considered and implemented into my workflow?

I shoot in RAW and export TIF files for feeding to the various stacking software programs currently available.

Adjustments for Color and Luminance Noice Reduction are available via Capture One Pro 4.7 and Adobe Lightroom and I will explore their potential further; but even at maximum settings the noise is evident and transferred to the individual frames when exported in preparartion for focus stacking.

Should noise reduction be applied before stacking or after stacking or both?






Craig

*edit: typos

[rovebeetle]

Magical is an understatement - psychedelic would be more appropriate .
Looks very nice.

NR: I have not yet tried whether NR is better before or after stacking but be careful - NR might obliterate some fine detail which might have an influence on the stacking accuity.

As for NR software - I have worked with NeatImage for a few years which can be customized pretty well but is very slow and difficult to get a profile when there are no large uniform areas in the image. 3 years ago I switched to Noiseware Pro which not only yields very good results already at the default setting but also is about 3 times faster than NeatImage. It also preserves detail a bit better.

Cheers

[Aynia]

I don't normally comment on butterfly scales but I do like these. The first of the two is... magical. I like that word.

How much difference do I see on my laptop between the two.. NR one and first??. Not a lot I might add.. or rather not a significant amount at this size. Perhaps at a larger size noise etc might be more noticeable.

[lauriek]

Nice shots Craig! These scales are very interesting, I must have another go at my specimen at higher mag!

I'm not sure but I think I prefer the non NR shots, I can see a little more detail in those (I think!).

If you are using Firefox on Windows you can use this method to compare the images;

Scroll down until the top picture you want to compare is at or near the top of the window/viewport.

Let go of the scrollbar/button/whatever.

Grab the scrollbar with the left mouse button and drag down until the second image you want to compare is in the same place the first was a moment ago, at the top of the screen.

Now without letting go of the mouse button, slowly move the mouse left, without going up or down. Once you get a certain distance away from the scrollbar the browser should flip back to the top image.

Stop but keep hold of the mouse button. At this point you can move the mouse right and left just a little and the browser will flip between the images.

While nearer the scrollbar you can move up and down slightly to re-position the second image if you didn't quite line it up the first time.

This sounds quite complicated but it's actually quite easy to do once you've got used to it!

[rjlittlefield]

Normally I shy away from noise reduction because I don't like the "plastic" feel.

But in this case, I prefer the NR'd images.

They might not be as "realistic" as the originals.

But I don't know what "reality" is anyway, because I don't know how to interpret the "noise". I suppose it's some kind of structure in the scales, interacting with some sort of structure in the illumination, but I have no clue what those structures and interactions might be, so it's just...noise.

You have my curiosity aroused, of course, because I'd like to know about the scales and the illumination.

But visually, I prefer the NR'd versions, no question.

--Rik