This is what can happen when a person spends too much time in Nik Tools. In this case Color FX Pro.
I started out by looking at this image and almost hitting the delete button. I saw nothing in this shot that even remotely excited me, except maybe the arc of the wings.
I always like wings on the down stroke, when I shoot BIF so that was ok.
Fortunately I had no other shots to process , so I started to play with it.
A little insight to my workflow.
Most times when I take a shot, there is a purpose and some sort of vision in my head of the outcome, so when I open up the image on my computer, I pretty much have an idea of what I want to accomplish.
In this case, I wanted to try out my kenko 1.4 TC on the 70-300mm lens, since I had not tried yet, so I wasn't really out to take shots to keep, just wanted to see how it handled really.
Ok, back to how I got from here to there.
Normally I start in LR and the first thing that I check and fix is the composition, before I do anything else. So I do some cropping a few different ways to see how I like it. I don't follow any rules , just what pleases my eyes.
The next thing I do, is lower highlights and exposure. I like to start with a little under exposed image at first, which I can correct later if needed.
After that I pull shadows to my liking, to get a right balance. The only other thing that I do in LR, is to adjust the "whites", and "blacks" sliders. Sometimes I don't touch those until the very end after everything else is done. It really depends on the shot.
Now that I'm done in LR, I'll export to PS. I don't do much in PS really, except maybe take out a few distractions. (content aware tool) .
Having Nik Tools there is really no reason to do layers and all that stuff in PS, when it all can be done a lot simpler in NIK.
In this particular shot, I did some NR in Define2, then I brought the shot into Color FX Pro.
At this point I still didn't know what I wanted to do with this shot. The only thing I liked so far was the wings on the dragonfly and the roses around it.
Normally when I enter Color Efex Pro, the first thing I adjust is the contrast. I use "Pro Contrast" for this.
The second thing I go for is, "darken/lighten center". I love this tool, because I can pick where the center point is., It's like a control point in "Viveza" but I don't have to leave Color FX Pro to do it.
After I got done with this, I thought that I might try a softer ,dreamy type of an image. I liked the way the roses were starting look, but the dragonfly wasn't really that sharp.
The thing about sharpening is, that if you don't start out with a somewhat sharp shot or subject, trying to force it to look sharp will do more harm then good. It will certainly ruin a shot.
As I was saying, I needed to get a softer, dreamier look, so I played with "glamour glow" until I found the right balance that I liked.
I added a little vignetting/ blur to the image while I was still in CFX pro, and then I exported the image back to PS.
Normally I do my sharpening in PS, with either "unsharp mask" or "smart sharpen", but this time I skipped and took the shot back to LR for a few finishing touches.
I then I pulled some whites and added a tiny bit of overall exposure.
I also selectively sharpened a few parts of the dragonfly. Mostly the wings, and some parts of the leaves on the rose. That's it I think. I might have forgotten to mention a few other things but for a shot that I was going to trash, I'm almost happy with the result.
So here is the before and after.
