Mosquito

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sun Jun 02, 2013 8:55 pm

Nikon MM-11 microscope, Olympus 20/0.40 LMPlanFL N, Canon T3i. 20X on sensor.

Saul · Post by **Saul** » Sun Jun 02, 2013 9:46 pm

Beautiful photo, Charles ! How you are getting so crisp details ?

Can you share the workflow of this masterpiece ?

emsiem · Post by **emsiem** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 1:07 am

This creates awe!

So clean specimen, looks alive

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 3:49 am

Mr.Stone · Post by **Mr.Stone** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 4:07 am

Strange to see the butterfly-like scales on the head of this annoying yet remarkable little guy.

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 4:44 am

Rogelio

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Mon Jun 03, 2013 2:41 pm

Can you share the workflow

Pretty typical for this type of shot. In this case I knew stacking would be with Zerene in the PMax mode with a large stack. Instead of using out-of-camera jpegs (as I do with some stacks) I processed the raw files to TIF files with a lower than normal contrast level and tried (as much as was possible) to keep the highlights subdued. Also used a bit more noise reduction than I might normally use in the source files.

After running the full stack I look over the results for "problem" areas that might benefit from localized separate smaller stacks. These sections are then run through the program and subsequently edited into the overall initial stack.

Then it's off to Photoshop to clean up the inevitable small detail problems. I never do the final contrast and color correction until after all the pixel-level work is done. (Sometimes when working in Photoshop I'll come across another area where I need to go back to Zerene and run an additional localized stack. If I have made color and contrast corrections already, it can be tricky to get those new areas to blend in nicely.)

arturoag75 · Post by **arturoag75** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 12:58 am

Jean-marc · Post by **Jean-marc** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 7:39 am

Charles,
Very beautiful

JM

Ecki · Post by **Ecki** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 9:31 am

Beaufiful and impressive!

SteveGreen1953 · Post by **SteveGreen1953** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 10:51 am

Nicely done!

Wim van Egmond · Post by **Wim van Egmond** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:14 am

A perfect stack. Still a bit strange to see it in this forum but indeed, when you use a microscope... Do you think using raw gives a lot of improvement? I also underexpose my stacks a bit and look at the histogram so the lightest areas stay a couple of percentages under the brightest white. But I prefer to shoot in jpegs because of the enornous filesize. But than again. You can always delete the raws and save the processed jpegs.

Wim

JH · Post by JH » Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:52 am

Inspiring!

Jörgen