Hawkfish

Taken in Pulau Weh, have done some auto-levels/colours + some healing tool for the black areas.

Exposure time 1/125 s

F-number 8

Exposure program Manual

ISO speed ratings 100

Nice shot! I did a little more work in Photoshop:

1. Tighter crop.

2. Used the Clone Stamp to increase the black.

3. Slight adjustment to color and contrast.

4. Used Burn Tool to quiet down the white coral.

5. Used light Unsharp Mask to sharpen just a bit.

I only spent about five minutes, so it's not real neat. I think that the tighter cropping focuses the eye more on the fish. The other stuff was just slight enhancement of the image.

In any case, that was a gorgeous shot. My compliments!

Thanks for the kind words and the work on the picture. I find myself being a bit conservative when it comes to cropping though. I think with such a tight crop the fish almost seems carved out, and there's too little environmental elements to appreciate the fish. Not only true for this particular pic, but also other peoples pics that have been cropped on this forum - quite often I think they're being cropped to much.

Apart from that I like what you've done and I appreciate the critique.

I do prefer the crop as I believe it eliminates a lot of the "dead" area on the left that draws you to it. IMHO

Nice shot all in all.

Then perhaps it's just me having a thing about crops? In a way I do agree that the crop is better, but it still looks strange to me.