Image Rescue

Underexposure is the most obvious issue that needs fixing in this macro shot

This eye-catching macro image of a nectargathering bee could be a cracker, but it looks like the brightness of the pink flower has tricked the camera’s meter into underexposing a lot of the photo – and that means some pleasing details in the bee’s body are lost. So let’s get busy…

In Lightroom, we’ll start with a general shadows lift by taking Shadows in the Basic Panel to +50. This lightens the whole image, but critically also

the focal point of the insect, and recovers some lost detail.

Framing could be improved slightly, too, so we’ll head over to the Transform Panel. Using Scale (120) and X Offset (+10.3), we can make the bee more prominent in the frame .

Back in the Basic Panel, we can still brighten the image further by pushing the Whites slider to the right.

Finally, we can use an Adjustment Brush over the body of the bee and tweak the Texture slider (+30) to bring a little more definition to our main subject in the photo

From exposure to composition, a few simple editing tweaks can make all the difference.