Ok another... from Moorea

Alright, so I took this one in Moorea, French Polynesia. I love it, but once again I fear that non-divers/photographers don't find it very interesting. This one gets maybe a little bit more response out of people I show it to than the last one I showed you guys. Do you guys have any tips for creating a SOLID background, one that's not grainy or pixelated in PS? I struggle with that a lot...

Moorea, FP

Olympus C-4040, single SB105

I did some smoothing of the background and some obvious contrast/color/brightness

Original and modified:

You do a nice job with this camera, I think the second shot is shapened to much, there is some digital noise, I think something in between the two would help.

My gut reaction to the shot is boring or plain. You have to look at lots of fish face shots from the pros to understand. Since there is no tail you would want to close in tight on the face. If showing the whole fish then the negative space becomes important. Now there are always exceptions but you have half a fish and an all blue background, kinda boring or maybe not boring but certainly not exciting.

Maybe if he faced you head on with the tail curved in the shot might have more impact to the picture. I would look at the "your best shot post "and look closely at fish pics, and I am sure you have seen tight fish face shots.

I think your technical skills are good, don't worry so much about this, the composition is really the main thing.

Not that this makes a major difference but here is a tighter crop.

-Steve

My girlfriend also had a problem with not having a tail in the shot, but she didn't like it cropped in either. She didn't like the shot at all . Thank you for the input...

I think I'm getting too excited about shots I feel show mastery of camera, but not ones that impress people in general! You guys are certainly helping me with this.

Should I be posting a photo/topic or can i post multiple photos per topic? Kind of a waste of topics for all the photos I'd like some feedback on.

If you have your own website, you can create multiple links to the photos you'd like to receive comments on. There's no limitation in terms of numbers. If you post photos the way you've been doing so far (i.e. attaching into the post), the limit is 200kb/post...

Like Steve, I like the colours, but would prefer to see the photo cropped to just the "face", as this shows a degree of deliberation in the composition, while if you show half the fish, it looks like you didn't frame the shot properly.

1-3 pics is fine for a post - I dislike links to website galleries - that would go into the showcase section anyway. You get more out of a critique looking at a couple of pics in depth.