On Sat, 2016-08-20 at 07:07 +0000, David Holland wrote:

I take photos of wildlife and with beetles I have a lot of reflection, is there an easy to remove this? IMG_8352beetle

Unfortunately the image didn't make it through the forum/mailing-list.

Are you using a flash? If so, try moving it off-camera, e.g. wth an extension cable.

If the image is over-exposed and details are lost, an image editor can't really restore them. But try setting your camera to save in raw format. If you're on Linux, use darktable, and/or RawTherapee, to open the raw image file and see if the details can be recovered.

If it's reflections not from the insect's carapace but from glass, a polarizing filter on the lens may help. They are available for a wide variety of cameras. Or, use a piece of black card to shade the glass from the light.

Liam

Liam R. E. Quin 

On 08/20/2016 03:07 AM, David Holland wrote:

I take photos of wildlife and with beetles I have a lot of reflection, is there an easy to remove this? IMG_8352beetle

Hey David,

The photo didn't make it through to the list, alas - posting the URL rather than a formatted link should bring it through.

Just as a guess it sounds like you will need to "paint over" the unwanted reflestions in the images, replacing them with realistic textures and contours that fit into the surrounding image smoothly.

Depending on the situation, resynthesizer tools like Heal Selection might be exactly what you want: That particular filter samples the image around the selection, and uses the color, texture etc. of those pixels to smoothly fill the selection. The Heal tool - a clone tool that does a similar trick to blend the cloned-in pixels with the existing ones - sometimes also comes in handy for removing smaller "visual clutter" from an image.

These tools are available in the gimp-plugin-registry package on .deb family (and I would bet .rpm) repositories. I'm not sure if it's in the Windows binary distribution or has to be downloaded separately.

You might get different and/or better advice when we have seen your example image.

:o)

Steve

On Saturday 20 August 2016 03:30:44 Steve Kinney wrote:

On 08/20/2016 03:07 AM, David Holland wrote:

I take photos of wildlife and with beetles I have a lot of reflection, is there an easy to remove this? IMG_8352beetle

Hey David,

The photo didn't make it through to the list, alas - posting the URL rather than a formatted link should bring it through.

Just as a guess it sounds like you will need to "paint over" the unwanted reflestions in the images, replacing them with realistic textures and contours that fit into the surrounding image smoothly.

Depending on the situation, resynthesizer tools like Heal Selection might be exactly what you want: That particular filter samples the image around the selection, and uses the color, texture etc. of those pixels to smoothly fill the selection. The Heal tool - a clone tool that does a similar trick to blend the cloned-in pixels with the existing ones - sometimes also comes in handy for removing smaller "visual clutter" from an image.

These tools are available in the gimp-plugin-registry package on .deb family (and I would bet .rpm) repositories. I'm not sure if it's in the Windows binary distribution or has to be downloaded separately.

You might get different and/or better advice when we have seen your example image.

:o)

Steve

The specular reflections cn be spread out so the details won't get lost by carrying a big silver umbrella the flash is aimed into. With the umbrellas silver surface, the power of the flash will be more widely dispersed, and while you'll still see the gloss, it will be distributed over a much wider area, and not near as bright as it is using the bare flash, which is nearly a point source. Check in Popular Phography magazine for dealers who still actually service the photo arts. They used to come in a wide variety of sizes, and one that opens to 3 or more foot diameter, with a tripod to position it and a pad to mount the flash to, should help give you a lot better image quality.

Too many times the image is overexposed and details lost when doing digital photography.

I used to do portraits with high contrast copy film developed in d-23 to lower the contrast, and was pleasantly amazed at the difference a pair of big umbrellas made, negatives miss-exposed by half a stop or more were still usable in the darkroom when making the prints. HCC film will display every failure of your cameras lens in glorious black and white, but if you get it right, you can count every hair and skin pore in a print you shot from 6 or 7 feet away. Doing my own color printing in the darkroom with chemical processes, I found it quite easy to make color prints that beat digital for sharpness by at least 50 times unless you spend several thousand just for the camera body. Todays $200 digital camera is the box brownie of the 1940's, with a slightly better lens.

Sadly, that technology, and the precision art form it could do, has been destroyed by the nearly instant digital photography print. Supplies for that method of taking a picture have dried up, and I read someplace, several years ago where Kodak had shut down the last film production line. Fuji might still be making some but I haven't checked in 2 decades.

Mmmm, I guess I am showing my age aren't I?

Cheers, Gene Heskett

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page 

As mentioned by others, try to soften and diffuse your flash. Even a piece of white paper or a handkerchief in front of the flash will help. lumiquest.com may have something you can use.

Rick

-----Original Message----- From: David Holland
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2016 3:07 AM To: gimp-user-list@gnome.org
Subject: [Gimp-user] Remove shine

I take photos of wildlife and with beetles I have a lot of reflection, is there an easy to remove this?
IMG_8352beetle

| |
| | | | | | | |
| IMG_8352beetle |
| |
| View on www.flickr.com | Preview by Yahoo | | |
| |

David,

If you're considering an umbrella for your flash, a simple search for "flash umbrella" will turn up lots of sources and tips.

Hope this helps.

Rick

On 8/21/2016 12:40 AM, Rick Strong wrote:

As mentioned by others, try to soften and diffuse your flash. Even a piece of white paper or a handkerchief in front of the flash will help. lumiquest.com may have something you can use.

Rick

-----Original Message----- From: David Holland Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2016 3:07 AM To: gimp-user-list@gnome.org
Subject: [Gimp-user] Remove shine

I take photos of wildlife and with beetles I have a lot of reflection, is there an easy to remove this?
IMG_8352beetle

| |
| | | | | | | |
| IMG_8352beetle |
| |
| View on www.flickr.com | Preview by Yahoo | | |
| |

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On Sat, 2016-08-20 at 11:11 +0000, David Holland wrote:

Thank you both for your answersIf you copy this URL can you see it?  Yahoo mail is a bit tricky
"www.flickr.com/photos/14586608@N08/29025064471/in/dateposted- public/"

Yes.

I have thought about using flash off camera but I am worried about knocking it in small places.

Off-camera flash, or steady lights (you can get LED lights fairly cheaply on ebay or aliexpress but I have not tried them), or put something over the flash to direct the light upwards.

Since you still have good detail there; you could check in darktable (assuming you're on Linux) or rawtherapee and see if any of the detail can be recovered, but I doubt it.

An LED macro ring light is another possibility. But best is if the light comes from the side, so it doesn't bounce off and hit the camera lens. See if you can go without flash at all.

      From: Steve Kinney
 To: gimp-user-list@gnome.org 
 Sent: Saturday, 20 August 2016, 8:30  Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] Remove shine    

On 08/20/2016 03:07 AM, David Holland wrote:

I take photos of wildlife and with beetles I have a lot of reflection, is there an easy to remove this? IMG_8352beetle

Hey David,

The photo didn't make it through to the list, alas - posting the URL rather than a formatted link should bring it through.

Just as a guess it sounds like you will need to "paint over" the unwanted reflestions in the images, replacing them with realistic textures and contours that fit into the surrounding image smoothly.

Depending on the situation, resynthesizer tools like Heal Selection might be exactly what you want:  That particular filter samples the image around the selection, and uses the color, texture etc. of those pixels to smoothly fill the selection.  The Heal tool - a clone tool that does a similar trick to blend the cloned-in pixels with the existing ones - sometimes also comes in handy for removing smaller "visual clutter" from an image.

These tools are available in the gimp-plugin-registry package on .deb family (and I would bet .rpm) repositories.  I'm not sure if it's in the
Windows binary distribution or has to be downloaded separately.

You might get different and/or better advice when we have seen your example image.

:o)

Steve

_______________________________________________ gimp-user-list mailing list
List address:    gimp-user-list@gnome.org List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-li st
List archives:  https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

   _______________________________________________ gimp-user-list mailing list
List address:    gimp-user-list@gnome.org List membership: https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-li st
List archives:   https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gimp-user-list

LED lights can have a weird colour temperature and spectrum (white balance). If your camera can take a pre-set white balance under whatever LED lighting conditions, so much the better.

Rick S.

-----Original Message----- From: Liam R. E. Quin
Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2016 7:56 PM To: David Holland ; Steve Kinney ; gimp-user-list@gnome.org Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] Remove shine

On Sat, 2016-08-20 at 11:11 +0000, David Holland wrote:

Thank you both for your answersIf you copy this URL can you see it? Yahoo mail is a bit tricky
"www.flickr.com/photos/14586608@N08/29025064471/in/dateposted- public/"

Yes.

I have thought about using flash off camera but I am worried about knocking it in small places.

Off-camera flash, or steady lights (you can get LED lights fairly cheaply on ebay or aliexpress but I have not tried them), or put something over the flash to direct the light upwards.

Since you still have good detail there; you could check in darktable (assuming you're on Linux) or rawtherapee and see if any of the detail can be recovered, but I doubt it.

An LED macro ring light is another possibility. But best is if the light comes from the side, so it doesn't bounce off and hit the camera lens. See if you can go without flash at all.