Each flip (front and back) and each butterfly required an adjustment of
the front flash, since dark wings needed more front flash than light
ones. The background flash did not change in the series though, nor did
the camera setting.

I started with the smallest butterflies, then raised the tripod as
needed for the larger ones. I first shot a sheet of paper that showed
the name of the butterfly, then the butterfly itself.

For each butterfly, I selected the best image and took it into
Photoshop. I then tweaked levels to make sure the butterfly itself used
the entire exposure range. I used healing and cloning to fix little
tears and imperfections caused by handling, then used Fluid Mask 3 to
create a mask, which was fairly easy given the way it had been lit.

The small photo look pretty clean as displaying, but with all those steps
I may not impress with the technique. But I may be wrong.

Or if I have to go through the whole collection of butterflies then I may
do.

1. Building a small BOX with some white background which won't cause any
flextor. Or seamless white paper may do?

2. Instead of using flash or strobe, I would put some light sources around
the small box to brighten the background and the butterfly. Just enough to
whiten the white background, and not too bright to cause wing transparency
issue.

3. If there is any small brightness issue then a quick Photoshop adjusting
should do.

I know Fluid Mask is a very good Masking tool, but I don't think it's
necessary with this type of photography or it may be a disadvantage. Or if
you really need to whiten the background, you may try Dodge/Burn tool which
should be much quicker, simpler, and probably cleaner than Masking.

Or if you still having some background problem then it could be LIGHTING
issue.

Joe <joe at (no spam) dontspam.com> wrote:

The small photo look pretty clean as displaying, but with all those steps
I may not impress with the technique. But I may be wrong.

I'm afraid you would have to buy the large image from iStock to see it
in full detail. Be assured that iStock does not accept any images that
are not pretty near pixel perfect at 100% though, and full detail on
this one is 3807 X 2979 pixels.


Or if I have to go through the whole collection of butterflies then I may
do.

1. Building a small BOX with some white background which won't cause any
flextor. Or seamless white paper may do?

2. Instead of using flash or strobe, I would put some light sources around
the small box to brighten the background and the butterfly. Just enough to
whiten the white background, and not too bright to cause wing transparency
issue.

You could do it a number of ways. Mine worked just fine.


3. If there is any small brightness issue then a quick Photoshop adjusting
should do.

I know Fluid Mask is a very good Masking tool, but I don't think it's
necessary with this type of photography or it may be a disadvantage. Or if
you really need to whiten the background, you may try Dodge/Burn tool which
should be much quicker, simpler, and probably cleaner than Masking.

The masking is for iStock. They pay more if you have a full clipping
path.


Or if you still having some background problem then it could be LIGHTING
issue.