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Fly Like a Butterfly!

Just had to post this image of a beautiful Palamedes Swallowtail Butterfly flying mid-air in my pink penta flowers. I love the soft effect I got in this image even though the colors are so bright. So how did I get this pretty image? First I added the Retro Vintage preset I created earlier (see my Fun Photoshop How to Add a Little Retro to Your Shots Blog under Create a Lightroom Preset For a Vintage Feel) at 145% Strength by using The Fader, a Lightroom plug-in that let’s you adjust the strength of the preset from 0% through 150% – major cool to use at times. A vignette was added and some colors were adjusted in the Saturation section of the HSL panel. Noise was removed and a little overall sharpening was applied. The butterfly was sharpened more using an Adjustment Brush. In Photoshop, Nik Viveza 2 was opened and three control points were placed – one on the butterfly and one each on the pink penta flowers to bring out exactly the correct detail and color. I love this plug-in! Next a Curves Adjustment Layer was opened to lighten up the butterfly and pentas. The Layer Mask was filled with black and a soft low opacity white brush was used to paint back the butterfly and flowers to get just the right amount of contrast. That was it. Very easy and I love the way this turned out!…..Digital Lady Syd