About the Image(s)

Camera settings 1/250sec, f/6.3,ISO6400, 219mm
My daughter and granddaughters travelled with me to Dunedin for my September check-in at the hospital, and they wanted to visit the butterflies at the museum while we were there. It isn't an easy place to take a camera - it is very hot and has very high humidity. However, I managed to get a few shots where my lens wasn't too steamed up!
I liked this one as an action shot. I thought I'd like to experiment with butterflies in black and white, as I have always processed with a focus on colour. The treatment I am on is affecting my colour perception, so I want to start using black and white more.

These butterflies were creating an interesting shape together, with good contrast in the wings of the top butterfly.
I began by rotating the image, so that the shape the subjects created was not straight on, then cropped in. Without colour to separate subject from background, I thought about processing to suit the black and white conversion.

I copied the layer and moved the butterflies onto their own layer, so I could work on the background only. I added a white to transparent gradient at low opacity, to lighten the right-hand side. I then added a slight gaussian blur, and painted back selected foreground leaves to keep them sharper. I then darkened the lower left-hand corner with a black to white gradient and multiply blend mode, adjusting opacity until it was subtle enough. Once happy with the background, I brought the butterfly layer back, and stamped up.

The black and white conversion was then relatively simple - not much tweaking needed at all. As always, I look forward to your feedback and suggestions :)