Stained glass dragonfly

Colin_Adams · September 30, 2016, 2:58pm

Long ago, I used to use G’MIC’s Octave Sharpening filter prior to printing. But for about 5 years I have done any printing. Until these last few weeks.

So for printing I was exporting 8-bit TIFFs from darktable, and importing into GIMP 2.8, just to print. Carmelo’s GIMP 2.9.5 AppImage made be think about the possible benefits of exporting 32-bit TIFFs instead.

I take (almost exclusively) pictures of dragonflies - in flight whenever I can. And last weekend I ended up with a picture so sharp that I could actually make out some of the individual segments of the antenna (for those of you unfamiliar with the anatomy of dragonflies, the antennae of the adult (as opposed to the larva) are rather small, so I was very pleased with this aspect of the picture. But would I still be able to see the detail on the print? That, and Carmelo’s AppImage, reminded me of G’MIC’s Octave Sharpening filter, but I reckoned that the 8-bit transfer might compromise the data.

Unfortunately, printing wasn’t working for me in the AppImage (my printer doesn’t appear). But by now I had got the bit between my teeth, and searched for an rpm. That worked, and the print does indeed retain sufficient detail to (just) make out the segments of the antenna.

Anyway, enough talking, here’s the picture:

After that, I decided to play with G’MIC for a bit. I especially liked this version:

paperdigits · September 30, 2016, 4:05pm

This is great! Amazing detail and sharpness, not to mention the coloring on the dragonfly.

Gmic has some great sharpening filters, I generally alternate between octave and Richardson Lucy.

Colin_Adams · September 30, 2016, 4:07pm

Note that the first photo does not have any output sharpening applied (I got confused when I uploaded).

Carmelo_DrRaw · September 30, 2016, 4:48pm

And now we have the new Sharpen [texture] filter which seems to do wonders with macro shots!

@Colin_Adams congratulations for the in-flight catch of this beautiful dragonfly!

paperdigits · September 30, 2016, 5:07pm

I have yet to try the texture sharpening… Is it good for things other than macro? I don’t shoot any macro shots.

Carmelo_DrRaw · September 30, 2016, 5:21pm

I’ve not tried yet, but I’d bet it works also very well for landscapes… what I noticed is that it produces significantly less visible halos in high-contrast transitions, compared to USM.

Whether it is good for portraits or not, I don’t know… to be tested, mostly to see how it accentuates skin textures.

Colin_Adams · October 1, 2016, 7:32am

Here’s another (I’m enjoying this):

Colin_Adams · October 2, 2016, 3:57pm

So I went down to one of my ponds this lunchtime to try the same thing for Common Darters (Sympetrum striolatum), to see if I could capture the segemnts of the antennae whilst in flight again.

In this case, touch-and-go:

I can really only see two differently shaded areas of colour on the male’s antennae, but the female’s are clearer.

In this solo male, all seven segments are clearly visible in the left antenna:

And of course I couldn’t resist emphasising the antennae segments using the same technique as before

Hm. that didn’t work so well - it seems to have hidden the antennae. Let’s try the solo male:

Ah. That’s better. Each of the seven segments of the left antenna form a separate tile.