Processing/Setup?

I've taken a few closeup shots of damselflies however none that I'm really fond of; I was curious whether my lighting or post processing was off.

E.g. my latest shot:

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I think it comes down to the post processing. Those images look like they have had some work done in photoshop to me. That glow around them is not natural.

I use Adobe Lightroom. This is what I have done with yours to give you an idea of what can be done. I am still learning this and I am not very skilled at it. It is much better to work from a RAW file but for yours I downloaded your larger image from flickr. I have played with exposure, blacks, contrast, saturation, noise and sharpening.

Thanks for that - it does look better, I guess I did blow my highlights which gave it a washed-out look. I'll give the processing another go - to be honest at the time I was just relieved photoshop managed to stitch 12 photos lol

However I think even after correcting the issues it won't look the image I linked to. Do you think it is a studio shot? The head appears isolated from the body however when you focus stack the images the front legs get in the way (I think the legs are always in the same focal plane as parts of the head) whilst in his only the head is in focus. It also appears he has used cross-polarised light to avoid the nasty reflections or maybe cloned them out? Doesn't look like natural night. Also not sure if the background was say blue card or digitally put in.

The eyes in particular are amazing. My guess is a huge photo-stack 20+, cross-polarized light and some digital manipulation?

Wish I had a better image to play with; had to use ISO 400 as it was a dull day and also I left my 60mm at home so had to use the 100mm which screwed up my light as my flash is usually positioned for the 60mm (bug closer) and it would have given me higher magnification with the extension tubes so I wouldn't have had to crop as much. Wish I had the foresight to position a green leaf or something behind it; hate the grey background.

It sounds like you know a lot more about post processing than me.

I think those shots have been taken from a lower angle so that you can't see any of the back. I don't know what they have done with the front legs but you are right, they would normally be in focus too. I expect it was done in a studio but they don't look dead. Have you tried asking the photographer how he does it?

Alright he's my second attempt

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That's looking better. The crop not being so tight helps. Can you get the ends of its antenna in?

Idlefrog wrote in post #14681092
That's looking better. The crop not being so tight helps. Can you get the ends of its antenna in?

Yea, I'll give it a go. I always get artefacts near the antenna when stacking though, do you?

Wider crop:

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