Tiger Beetle

[joesaladino]

I wanted to show the minure detail of this tiger beetle's body. Did I crop-out too much when I zoomed-in?

[Jediboy]

It's a nice shot that shows lots of detail with great colours,but I find myself wanting it to be sharper.
There is a blur around the beetle that doesn't do the photo any favours. And personally I think the photo would be more balanced if the entire beetle was in the shot. But these are just my opinions, and overall it's a good effort.

[joesaladino]

Thanks for your comments Jediboy. I agree with you that parts of the image need to be sharper. I tried focus-stacking for the first time with Photoshop CS4 by combining several images that varied in their depth-of-fields. It seemed to work for the beetle's body and extremeites. The blur around the beetle seems to be a byproduct of the focus-stack.. The reason I cropped so much was because I wanted to show the minute details (like the small hairlike projection on the beetle's legs and antennae).