Is this National Geographic photo faked?

Was looking though this month's National Geographic the other day, and came upon some fascinating images of life surrounding the balsa trees in Panama.  But the closer I looked, the more I realized Photoshop played a significant role in producing these images.  And the more I stared at the images, the more I began to question the authenticity of the photos.

In this one example, you can see at least one, but possibly two other Photoshop actions.  First, the drop shadow: there is a dark shadow to the upper left edges of the preying mantis, that could never actually occur in real life.  Second, lens blur: the bottom left petal is out of focus while the bottom right is not, and the upper left is in focus but not the upper right.   And particularly, the bottom right petal goes from being in focus on the front end bend, to being out of focus at the tips that are curling back, which is opposite of what the photo would normally be -- the front edge would be blurred and the tips curved back would be in focus.  Third, gamma filter: clouds on the right side of the preying mantis' antennae is dramatically darker than those on the left.

With that much Photoshop work done, is the image itself (the original composition as conveyed) real?  Or is this just a case of really bad Photoshop skills?