I captured this Finch the other day at Butterfly World, here in Coconut Creek, Florida. I was getting ready to leave the aviary and go home when I spotted this one on a branch.  Not only was he colorful, he was positioned with an attractive background.

I had to crop out a lot of the background to present this to you this way. I can only get so close in the aviary, as there are barriers to prevent people from trampling the plants and flowers that the butterflies feed upon. He was about 7-10 feet away when I shot this with my 100mm macro lens. Again, some of my best shots come to me when I’m ready to call it a day. That’s why I don’t put the lens cap on or turn off the camera until I’m at my car, ready to drive away.

I captured this image several months ago on one of my many trips to Fern Forest Nature Center. I was walking along one of the trails, looking for something unusual to shoot, when I came across this cluster of berries.

To tell you the truth, I don’t know what they’re called. I was attracted by the bright color and the fact that they were perfect, without a blemish. This made them a very attractive subject to me.

But when I got it home and looked at it, I didn’t know what to do with it. On my computer it looked like a  fairly plain shot. I knew I could run it through Topaz Adjust to jazz it up a bit, but it just didn’t seem like the thing to do.  So I let the image set on my hard drive and do nothing.

I’ve learned a few things since I captured this image. I’ve been working with texture overlays to enhance my images, and I’ve gone back to a plug-in that I dearly love but neglected for a while: Fractalius.

The idea of this plug-in for Photoshop is to expose the hidden fractal structure that lies within an image. It can be very intense in its effect, or be rendered more subtly. It basically can make an image into a work of art with one click.

The reason I stopped using it for a while is that it doesn’t work in 64 bit Photoshop. It only works in a 32 bit version or in Elements.

And this did not fit my work flow. When I upgraded from Elements to the full version of Photoshop CS5, the full version automatically became the external editor. It seemed that to use Fractalius I would have to export a JPEG to my desktop and then open it in Elements. I did that a few times and it just seemed clunky.

But I’ve been reading Bloomin’ Ideas by Denise Ippolito, and her use of this plug-in motivated me to take another look at it. Last night I realized I could set up Lightroom to give me a choice between Elements and CS5. Problem solved!

So I took this image directly from Lightroom to Elements, created a duplicate layer, and opened the image in Fractalius. I used the Soft Fix preset I got from Denise’s book to get that soft yummy look that you see below. I also added some texture  to make the background more interesting.

I took a short trip to Butterfly World yesterday. It was short because it was brutally hot (90+ degrees). But despite the heat, I was able to get some great shots.

The first thing I did upon arriving was head to the outdoor garden area. I love shooting flowers there and wanted to do so before it got any hotter. It was already a bit after 11am when I got there, and I knew the sun would be even more scorching before long.

I came across these pink flowers and was careful to be selective in my focusing to make the best composition. The background came out with a sort of flat pleasing green. As I looked at the image last night, I felt it really needed something more to bring out the best in the image.

As you can see this isn’t bad. I just felt the background could use a bit of improvement. The flower itself was OK, though I did experiment a bit with Topaz Simplify before deciding to leave it alone.

I love using texture in a situation like this. It can do so much to enhance an image without ruining the subject or changing the composition. I tried a richly textured background. The end result was not bad.

But I wanted a different effect, something with more contrast, and not a texture I had used recently on another image. I picked out another texture and placed it as a separate layer in Photoshop. That one alone did not do it. I switched between textures on their own layers, playing with the opacity sliders and  blending modes. Finally, I decided to see what both looked like at once.

You see the end result above. I was very pleased with the outcome. The blue complements the pink nicely and kept the image from being too flat. The added contrast and pleasing blue color got high praise on 500px.

When I was at Butterfly World one of the staff informed me that there were some new species in the aviary. Above is an image of one of these new citizens, the Tailed Jay.

These beautiful creatures hail from India, Asia, and Australia. They are accustomed to living in rain forest environments, though they tend to do well in any wooded area and as a matter of fact, are routinely seen in gardens and urban areas. They’re a non-threatened species that are quite common in their countries of origin.

They are usually extremely active, flapping their wings even when eating nectar or resting on plants. The image below shows why I was able to get such a close shot of this particular butterfly.

I told one of the staff members that I had come across one of the new butterflies that had only half a wing. When I led her to him, she was dismayed. She told me that they had just released that species yesterday into the aviary, and that it was a shame that he was in such poor condition already. Neither were sure he was going to be able to fly much of anywhere.

I’ve been playing a lot with textures lately. It’s something I just recently learned how to do and its been doing a lot to enhance my images and bring out more of my creativity. Once I got it down it doesn’t take long to do and it can really help an image with a less than pleasing background.

The image you’re looking at above was enhanced with a texture I got from Joel Olives Photography. There’s many sources for textures all over the web, some free, some you pay for. I use Joel’s because they are very high quality and I get the look I want very quickly. The original is below.

I didn’t like the background color much at all. This was straight out of the camera with the aperture set to f5.6. I did the best I could to get an attractive green background behind the flower, but the color to me came out in what looked like to me a sickly green.

When I’m faced with a situation like this, I look through my collection of textures to find one that seems most suitable. I look for one that has a color that will either match the existing background in a better shade, or one that  will blend in well with it.

In this case I picked one with a darker shade of green, since I felt the original was too light. I also look at the texture itself. Sometimes I want it to be grungy, other times I want something more subtle.

Once I’ve decided on the texture, adding it is very easy. There’s different ways to do it, but the way I do it goes like this:

1. In Photoshop or Photoshop Elements I go to File>Place. This opens a dialogue that allows me to navigate to the texture I want to use. I click on the “Open” button.

2. The texture will then be superimposed over my original image on its own layer. I right click on the layer and in Elements click on “Simplify layer”, or in Photoshop “Rasterize Layer”. I need to do this to be able to add a layer mask if necessary.

3. I stretch out the texture to fit over my image the way I want using the mouse while holding down the left button. There is no need for any special tool to do this.

4. When it’s where I want it I either click on the green checkmark below the image if I’m using Elements. If I’m in Photoshop, I select the “Move” tool and click on the “Place” button that appears.

5. In the layers panel I go to the blending modes and usually select “Soft Light”. “Overlay” and “Multiply” can be useful at times. Experimenting with Opacity slider  and blending modes can yield interesting results.

From there I may choose to use a layer mask to paint out the texture or an inverse mask to paint it in. I may choose instead to apply Topaz Adjust or Topaz Simplify to part or all of the image, depending on the effect I want to achieve.

If you have any questions feel  free to leave them in the comments section or contact me directly. Joel Olives also has some good tutorials on his website that helped me considerably in learning how to do this.