I haven't had any time to go out and shoot new images this last month so I've used what little free time I had exploring new software. Here's an image I made a couple of months ago that I have been playing with...
Wandering Glider (Pantala flavescens) Canon EOS 20 D with Canon EF 70-300mm IS zoom lens set at 300mm, 25mm Kenko extension tube, ISO 200, 1/200 sec @ f 11, natural light, monopod with IS turned on.
The original image was decidedly soft and contained quite a bit of noise for ISO 200. I live in Phoenix, Arizona, USA and summertime photography is performed under some very hot conditions. It was probably 108°F when I made this photograph. When it is this hot the noise levels produced by the digital sensor increase. To reduce these higher noise levels I purchased Noise Ninja. This noise reduction program works great! You can download preset noise reduction files tailored to your camera and ISO settings or you can create your own custom settings. So far, the preset settings have worked perfectly for my cameras.
I am, also, not the most adept at sharpening images with Photoshop's unsharp mask function. I seem to overdo it and create a lot of sharpening halos. I purchased Fred Miranda's "Intellisharpen II" action for Photoshop. This is a nifty sharpening action that will allow quite a high degree of sharpening to be done on an image without producing noticeable sharpening halos. Left to my own talent I couldn't get this image as sharp as it is posted without lots of sharpening halos. The Intellisharpen action gave me a much sharper image without halos. This was $24.95 that was well spent.
Best regards to all as always
I bought a college book on Dragonflies about 20 years ago, cost $55, and I was expecting to see lots of colorful pictures of these beautiful insects and all it had was pictures of wings and sexual parts that they use to ID them. I know it is a great reference but I like pictures better 
