Mating mandarinfish

Two shots of mating mandarinfish : wich one to enter in a contest ? Tanks for your time

the second for me.

serge

I would also vote for number two.

Great pictures..

Number two for me as well!

Adam

It depends on the competition, but mating madarinfish, in general, are unlikely to do well in competitions these days because everyone has seen them before.

Nice shots, though.

Alex

Thanks to all for the feedback !

The first shot

It has a less cluttered/busy background

There are no areas lost in shadow (especially the front fish)

you can see both fishes eyes

the composition is stronger

( IMHO! )

It would really benefit from a little less exposure, or application of a different curve in PS, so the colours of the fish are a little less washed out and really pop

nice stuff

Leander

i hope you don't mind - I had a quick play

Auto levels - it doesn't always work, but interesting to see

Shadows Highlight tool, adjusting highlights (with colour correction on)

There is not a lot of detail left in a 30K jpeg, so I'm sure you could get better with the originals

Thank you Lndr, I really appreciate the constructive criticism