This damselfly looks a little skeptical, and who can blame it, as I am continuing Adventures in Photo Editing Angst Week? I did my usual light editing, but then remembered a friend suggested using a duplicate layer in “Multiply” mode (mind, this is in GIMP) to reduce highlights, so I gave it a whirl. It’s a simple solution, and it worked more or less; I liked the result relative to my first editing effort, though I think it could have been achieved with Contrast, Levels, Curves, etc (which are generally the controls I use). Is one versus the other more degrading to the image? I don’t know; I guess I should ask my friend. :)
BugPhoto.net 
Awesome shot, Mike!
Thank you, Bean! :)
Yes awesome! I am going to try the same trick, when opportunity presents itself in photoshop. One issue might be incremental noise with either path requiring careful sharpening. However, this worked so why fiddle with great!
Thanks, Victor! I should add I actually, did use a Levels adjustment, so it’s really a combination of the two. (And this work was done on a TIF file I had exported from Nikon’s ViewNX 2 software which I used to make adjustments to the NEF file.)
I’m curious, do you do selective sharpening? Say through selections of specific areas? I’ve tried that before, but it didn’t turn out so well. I think I have a few more tricks in my software editing bag to try it again, though.
Yes but with a plug-in. There tools in Photoshop but I have never used them.
To be clearer the photo is likely to get a bit smoothed as if you over did noise reduction, hence the need to re-examine your sharpening but globally not selectively. Some extra sharpening for the web is not a bad thing, less for printing on paper. Hope this helps.
Regards
Nah, I dont think you should talk to him any more than you have to.
On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 2:21 PM, BugPhoto.net
@Victor thanks, definitely helpful!
@Harvey Shepard You wouldn’t say that if you knew him! Thanks for stopping by my website.
Beautfiul shot, once again. Your pictures always make me stop scrolling, lol.
Thank you, very nice to hear. :)
On Sat, Sep 21, 2013 at 6:31 AM, BugPhoto.net