School of Fish - Jacks maybe - looking for tips

Ok

Fish school.

Cozumel, MX - Feb 2004

Aquatica/8in dome

D100 @ 125th/ISO 100

Sigma 15mm @ 5.6

DS125 @ 1/2 with diffusor

Me - just learning

Played with levels a bit in photoshop.

Any thoughts on improving it after the fact.

If this was shot in RAW, I suggest bringing down the exposure by .25 to .5 stops. This will darken the overall shot but I think will result in a more pleasing blue water.

If shot in JPEG, then you can use curves to do the same. I would try to lower the highlights side of the curve.

The composition and strobe exposure is excellent. I might also consider "getting rid of" the rock on the lower right.

HTH

James

If shot in JPEG, then you can use curves to do the same.  I would try to lower the highlights side of the curve.

 

HTH

James

Which is the highlights side of the curve?

I shoot RAW but this may help me better understand how to best use curves. I will have to do a search to see but, maybe a discussion or article similiar to the RAW one on how curves works may be very useful.

I've been back and forth about the rock, can't make up my mind.

I'll give curves a try to bring down the highlights a bit, they are a bit blown out.

It's JPEG unfortunetly.

I've been avoiding shooting RAW just because I don't want to limit my number of shots per card.

Looks like I'm going to have to give up and either buy a bigger CF or just open the case between dives to change CF.

 

If shot in JPEG, then you can use curves to do the same.  I would try to lower the highlights side of the curve.

 

HTH

James

 

Which is the highlights side of the curve?

 

I shoot RAW but this may help me better understand how to best use curves. I will have to do a search to see but, maybe a discussion or article similiar to the RAW one on how curves works may be very useful.

The right side. I agree with James. Try pulling down on the curve at around 3/4 of length of the diagonal line.

That was my guess based on a histogram. Thanks, love the new program.

Thanks Herb. I wish I could write an article about curves, but I just don't understand them that well. At the Digital Shootout Daniel and Julliane seemed to concentrate on using Levels instead, as you can get the same results using either control. I just like grabbing the curves I guess...:-)

Cheers

James

This is IMHO the best article on digital photograhy:

http://www.normankoren.com/digital_tonality.html

Curves, and why they are a good thing is covered near the end.

Yep... I agree, curves is very handy and it's fun to pull on the line, lol.

And yes, those are Horse-eye Jacks ...great shot!