Image critism needed

Hello all.

I would like to get critic about this photo, which I really like but some others maybe don´t.

How could I improve it.

D200

Aquatica

2x S&S YS110a

Sigma 20mm f1.8

1/125

f 9.0

ISO 400

Water temperature 3.5 celcius or 38F

Location: Hjalteyri, Eyjafjordur, Iceland

All the best to all

Well firstly,

How far are you willing to go in photoshop? If your a traditionalist, you could do the basic contrast improvements i.e. increase the highlights and thus make it pop out a bit more.

Heres what I would do if that was for personal use and not for competition etc

I would open the raw file - increase the saturation and brightness of the blue background. I would then increase the highlights and drop the shadows a tad. I would then dodge (make it brighter) the nudi and locally decrease the blues between the nudi's gills. - basically a local contrast edit.

Then I would increase the vignetting on the coners (darken the corners) so it focuses the eye in closer on the subject - I think that would be the best improvement.

Add a touch of saturation to the greens in the image as well

Cheers

Cal

I think that the light and the subject are good. But IMO, the main subject (nudi) is too small in the frame - especially when viewed at this size. It is also placed dead centre, which emphasises how small it is and does not invite the eye to explore the rest of the frame.

The image would be more dynamic if the boundary between the kelp and the blue water ran on a diagonal, rather than straight up and down.

The strengths of this image are the nudibranch and the interesting light cutting across the kelp, creating areas of highlight and shadow around an interesting subject. Give the viewer more of this good stuff, with a tighter crop, to they fill more of the frame.

The background is probably 1/2 a stop too dark, which would enliven the image (drop the shutter speed to 1/90th or 1/60th). It would also benefit from a bit more interest (some surface texture, light beams etc) to add a bit more depth the image. Solid colour backgrounds tend to leave images looking a bit flat.

Anyway those of some of things I would have thought about - although I am not sure how much thinking I would have managed at 3.5˚C!

Alex

Water temperature 3.5 celcius or 38F

3.5!!!!!

I'm diving in tropical waters then with 10 celsius degrees.

The image would be more dynamic if the boundary between the kelp and the blue water ran on a diagonal, rather than straight up and down.

Maybe have a play in PP and crop it a bit and also put on the diagonal ?

Also the water background seems a bit to uniform have you tweaked it in PP, is so maybe a bit much IMHO.

As for 3.5 C your NUTS !

35C is more my level.

Cheers,

Richard B.

I think the image also looks better in landscape orientation.

I agree with loftus, that I think it looks better in landscape orientation. Perhaps you could crop it in and rotate just a tiny bit so that the edge of the kelp and angle of the nudi is more of an upwards diagonal (bottom left to top right). I'm no expert on any of this, I would just find that more aesthetically pleasing :-)

Thanks to all who have commented so far.

I will try to post new version, in the next few days. Using the tips you have given me ( not understanding all though :-)

Thanks again and all the best to everybody.

Click here!

I post the original to begin with.

Here we have the new version, done in RAW and then PS, since I cropped it a lot, the noise begin to show so it had to be darkened.

There was no texture in the original so the only thing I did was to saturate and exposure the blue

Then sharpen, dodge, and saturate in the Nudi.

I am not so happy with the results and will gladly send someone the raw file if someone want´s to try.

Thanks

gassa