Is it over processed

I am confused with this post-processed photos. When are they p-p and where are the boundaries.

I was diving yesterday, outside temperature -7 degrees celcius and underwater +5. Dive time 50 min making my hands totally numb but i didn´t want to quit until I was satisfied.

Almost every macro photo I have taken so far have been dull and out of focus, but this one, despite being still dull i Immediately saw it had some opportunity.

Let´s look af the original.

Then after after going through the Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in where i manly used orange, red slider to bring out the colours, also vibrance, blacks and recover.

Then in PS i used 2 layers of channel mixers, dark & soft ligth, both 15%.

Let´s look at the Image. Is it post-processed or just over done?

Finally one photo just so you can see how dedicated diver I am...

Happy new year everbody

Gassa,

I really like your final image. The only thing I might do is tone down the white fluffy stuff bottom left as it distracts.

I'm assuming your 'original' image is the way the RAW image looks, in which case, RAW always looks dull compared to a processed image.

Even for the purists I think adjusting color, contrast, sharpening etc is well within the expected adjustments for an image.

You are clearly a dedicated diver, Happy New Year!

I agree. I really quite like the second image, but those white bits are distracting.

And driving through 1m snow to go diving does rate as pretty dedicated

Cheers

Sean

Gassa, you are quite a dedicated diver, I admire that!

To answer your question, the photo does not look overdone

Scott

Gisli,

Your a better man than I, -5C is below my threshold. Love the image, it's a great one to practise some processing options with. You might want to try a slightly tighter crop and try darkening the edges and see what you think. Just one of the many opportunities you have with this image. I agree with the guys that the white bits could go.

Have fun and try to warm up a little.

Steve

Thanks to all!

I can´t belive I haven´t seen the white spot, and the croping is good advise also. I sometimes don´t like photos which are tigth cropped but what you did Steve was just in the middle.

I am going again tomorrow, not sure what lens to bring.

Thanks very much again guys.

Gisli A. Gudmundsson

I like it, but certainly it looks overcooked to me. Looks like the nudi have bioluminescence or was lit from behind... either way looks unnatural but cool.