This last photo (“natural distance”) – is this the actual file from the camera that you used to create the other two? It seems to be quite a low resolution for an iPhone shot.
Because it was posted as an observation, it would have been resampled down by the process of uploading. You wouldn’t still have the actual original file you uploaded? That’s what I would need.
You could send it to me as a link if you need to. Even here in the forum, as an attachment, it will get reduced in resolution.
Or, crop the original to roughly the same as the other two closeups and post that here as an attachment (though not quite as good as the true unprocessed file).
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RESCUE NO. 4: I’m dreaming of a very white owl…
Owch. Those highlights are burned, burned, burned. Nothing but zero data in those highlights. Now see, this is a case where if we had the original in RAW format, there likely would have been a lot more recovery possibility.
But, I cannot do much better than spruce up everything else a bit.
Original:
And the hocus-focus edition:
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Reminds me of a story my family has - my parents took us to California 25 years ago and we went to a place called Mount Dana. Near the summit we all started feeling sick from the altitude, but my sister and my dad suddenly saw a mountain lion in the distance. Me and my mom saw a marmot. And now whenever we all manage to come together for Christmas it’s one of the stories we recount and still wonder who was right 
I don’t remember if there is a picture, it would have been taken with an analog camera… I’ll actually visit my parents this year so I’ll have to see if those pictures still are in a box in the attic somewhere.
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RESCUE NO. 5: FLASH-PHILLED PHYLLARIES
Okay, here’s the original:
And here’s my holiday special photo-spa treatment:
I think the phyllaries have a little more definition. But there’s not a lot of tonal range to work with in that area because of the flash flattening-- and also because it introduced a lot of surface texture highlights, or something. I think you need to work out something far less harsh and close.
As for the flash, are you using your phone or a camera? (And what make/model?) If it’s a camera, maybe look into a simple diffuser or a reflector – it would depend a lot on the camera setup. You could also start with using the AF illuminator as a light source – I’ve done that with my Olympus TG-6 when things are too close to use a flash. Also, just another light source might do it without a need for any camera flash. A simple flashlight or headlamp with a tissue diffuser taped over it. A cheap, small, camping lantern (seen these for like $5 at the dollar store). Or in many conditions, just a big sheet of white card or if you can shoot with one hand, hold a ‘flashlight screen’ on your phone up near the subject and move it around and see where the sweetspot is for shadow definition.
Good luck!
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Phone picture with handheld flashlight. Do you think any of the subtle details and colors can be enhanced? Thanks Bob.
A museum specimen looks like http://nearctica.com/moths/noctuid/psaphida/nocloa/paramiana_pseudomarina.htm
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RESCUE NO. 6: WARMING UP THE MOTH
I think the color problem is light temperature, at least–judging by the reference shot you supplied. And I see a lot of colours that do not seem to appear in the reference shot (though it is of such low resolution, that might by why).
If I correct to more closely match that, the background distinctively gets warmer. Is that what you remember?
As for detail, I just did some denoise/sharpening.
Please let me know what you think.
Original:
And the tweaked version:
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RESCUE NO. 7: A wing and a prayer
Yikes. Not a lot of pixel dust to play with. But it’s pretty noise-free, and colour looks pretty natural. As it comes from a phone, it also has some processing lurking in the patterns. Also, I really wish you would check to see that the original full image you posted matches the same pixel dimensions of the file used. As I’ve said, things get resampled here and if I’m doing an ‘upsampling’ (increasing detail), I’d rather work with a cropped version of the original that fits ‘under the door’ of the iNat forum image maximum of 2048 (longest side). But if this is the best res you have…
Cropped Original:
And through Gigapixel at 300% (which is pushing it, but maybe too much. That under-wing looks pretty weird!)
EDIT:
Umm… I changed my mind a bit about the colour. That shoreline looks a little too warm, and by being so, it jumps forward too much. And the ‘plastic’ looking foliage doesn’t help either. So what if I added a little gradient blur (kind of a bokeh effect) to aid in the separation, tweaked sharpening in a few areas and cooled things down? Well. It is what it is.
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Well, it’s much better than the original. Thanks!
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Did you mean that a portion of the original photo would be easier to work with? I cropped the original image, so it looks a bit clearer. The head and legs are a bit more discernible here. If it doesn’t make a difference, that’s fine. The edited photo looks much nice than the original, the gradient blur looks great! Thank you!
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YES! Thank you. It’s not easy to understand for everyone, but if you want the best results it’s much, much better to crop the full image file to an area which is no bigger (on its longest side) than 2048 pixels.
Smaller is okay if that’s all you got. But if you have much more than 2048, crop it in until you get to 2048, save that as a new file and THEN post that file here for me to work on.
In lieu of an easy full original file transfer method (for now), this is about as good as we can do.
I’ll rework your newest image later and you can expect a MUCH better result.
I hope everyone else gets what I’m talking about. Feel free to ask (here, or message me) to clarify if you need to. Thanks!
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That’s already an enormous improvement! I also love how the water droplets on the ligules (or I suppose the “petals” for you non-botanical folks) sharpened up. Big White Floating Orb and Friends are gone too. If I could magically increase the depth-of-field, I would hang that on my wall.
I use a Motorola phone and put a magnifying loupe over it :-)
Pretty rudimentary rig, if I do say so myself. It works well when there’s plenty of natural light, but not so much at lower light levels, like in that case. If I could use another light source, I would… but I use one hand to hold the plant still and the other to hold the loupe in place and to take the photo, so my hands are quite occupied already. I could sure use a 3rd hand!
I’m going to try covering the flash with a few layers of masking tape to diffuse the flash; I can tape it to a different part of my phone case so I can move it out onto the phone case if I don’t need it. Otherwise, I suppose I might just need an actual camera…
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To avoid the “white” scales on a moth, you need to play with the angle of the flash or your viewing angle. Otherwise you get these overblown speckles from the reflection that obscure the pattern and colouring. In my experience the best angles would be directly in front of and behind the moth, and at a lower angle.
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Okay. Back again.
Your ‘new’ higher rez original:
And the retweak:
Great example of what supplying a better original with more pixels can achieve. Thanks for that.
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Wow, that is a huge difference! Thanks!
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Okay, I just want to be sure here. Is the alleged otter that dark dot in the water just about at the top of the left tree?
I estimate that had to be about 2 SMU (Super Mario Units, or 16 pixels per) wide. (Zoom in for reference.)
So my next question–is it all possible that the original file that you uploaded here is wider than what appears here as 1920 pixels wide? If so, could you tell me what the resolution of the original actually is?
If not… well, would you care for the address of a red-suited senior who purportedly provides free gifts as well on Christmas Eve?
I left you a message in your observation. Please check and get back to me.
Thanks!
Thanks for being willing to take another attempt at the maybe lion. I’m not certain this is the original file. I may have made some edits and deleted the original in a photo purge.
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Yes! This looks definitely more promising. I will crack it open tomorrow and see what happens. Thank you.
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I thought I had sent you the original, let me dig in my folders and make sure and get all the info attached. And yes, the floating black dot is the otters head. It was so far out so my camera was zoomed all the way in hopes of capturing it.
This was my zoom in with some edits:
So that is the original without me doing edits on my own, and is the screenshot the info you needed?
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I’ll give it a go, but to be honest (and no offence) I would prefer an unedited crop of the actual camera image. Even though that probably won’t look as ‘presentable’ it gives me wiggle room with my software.
But if that’s not possible, I will see what I can do with this.
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