OK, I read "What makes a good photograph"

I want to enter this in my camera club's Nature competition next week, but some people have told me they think it's too busy. So I cropped it. These judges are generalists. They are not uw photographers so they have no idea what crack heads these fish are. They will only judge it on composition, exposure, etc. I have tons of other photos I could enter, but I love these fish. I think they are beautiful and it took me forever to get one in focus. So maybe I'm too close to the subject, thus, I'm asking for objective, outside opinions, and I can totally take brutal honesty. Tell me it sucks if it does indeed suck.

Before crop

After crop (maybe I could take even more off the top?)

the first is the better image IMHO- good background which despite being busy doesnt detract much and provides some context to where this type of fish lives. I would prefer the black hole not exist under the fish, but that is a nit pick on where the image could be improved if you get another shot at it. One or two of the hotspots on the coral could gbe toned down a touch in PS so the eye doesnt gravitate towards them and you could play around with a crop that brings the fish up from the corner at a bit more of an angle and see how that looks vs what you have now- there is nothing in this shot that really calls for perfect alignment. The second shot seems too much of a bullseye approach and one that would find a home in a fish ID book. Hope this helps

I tend to agree with Eric. The first composition is much better imho. Theres some room for the fish to swim

Suzy

I agree the first image is the better composition; though composition rules can be broken - one rule that you broke with the second crop is centering the image, generally best to place the image at the intersection of the frame thirds as you have in the first image. Depending on how much you want to work in Photoshop I suggest the following. Rotate the fish as previously mentioned, probably pointed down a little, but experiment.

I also agree with darkening the background a little, the easiest way is to duplicate the background layer in PS and then use the burn in tool to darken it.

Finally I think you can get the fish to separate from the background a little with a two stage sharpening technique.

Try this:

In PS go to Filter, Unsharp Mask and set the Amount to 15%, Radius to 80 Watch the image pop.

Then go to Filter Smart Sharpen, start with Radius 1 and Amount 100 and adjust to taste, also consider the size of your print if you are printing.

One more thing if you want to downplay the background more, you can mask the fish and apply a Gaussian Blur filter to the Background. Not sure how much you want to work on it though.

Good luck.

I agree i like the first one too.

If editing .. a tiny bit is allowed ... then why not make the fish pop a bit more and make the background less of the emphasis.. i mocked up a quick go at one. The example may be a bit over the top, but is merely an example .. just a bit of curves and then masking the fish out some blur and lowered exposure.

Giles

Oooo Giles. I love what you did! I'm going to work on it tonight. If I can remember how to mask, that is. LOL.

Thanks for all of the other advice too. I really do appreciate it. I always have trouble with hot spots.