First time pic post

exploradora

First post on Dgrin. Looking forward to sharing my (very amateur) work and getting feedback from you all.
I'd like to start with this shot of a surfer in San Juan del Sur, Nicargua

Pixel Popper

Welcome to Dgrin, and congrats on your first post!

I like the feeling this shot conveys. The day is almost over, but it's just too much fun to quit. Must go for another wave!
:ivar

I would really like to see a larger version of this image to be able to make an accurate evaluation. I like the fact that the subjects in the image are in silhouette. If I had to nit pick, I would say that the image could use a bit more contrast and some color correction. I think you might be able to find some more blue tones in the sky and the water, and still preserve the gold and red tones of the setting sun.

Do you have Photoshop or any other editing software? There are lots of folks in these forums who can give great technical advice about how to achieve these things, if you would like to try it.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing more of your work!

Richard

exploradora wrote:

First post on Dgrin. Looking forward to sharing my (very amateur) work and getting feedback from you all.
I'd like to start with this shot of a surfer in San Juan del Sur, Nicargua

Hi exploradora . I'm afraid I don't see the pic. Do you have your gallery set to allow external links?

Regards,

exploradora

Yes, I do have Photoshop and I would love to learn as much as possible about making my photos look great. I will go back and play with the contrast and color. Any tips are much appreciated. As far as posting a larger copy of the pic, I'm not sure how to do that.
Also, I have now set my gallery for external links, thanks!!

Pixel Popper

OK, so here's a question for you. Did you add this image as an attachment, or did you add it as a link from another photo posting site? I ask because if you did it as an attachment, you are severely limited in the size of image you can upload. However, if the image is originally posted on another photo sharing site such as Smugmug, Picasa, Webshots, Flikr, etc., (there are a million of them) then you can simply link to the image on that site and have the freedom to determine what size you wish to post.

If you do it like that, you are not using up space on Dgrins servers, and you can also add multiple images in one thread, as opposed to only one small attachment per thread. Does that make sense?

Holla if you need some help!

exploradora

Thanks Pixel Popper!
I firgured out how to upload a large. Yes, I'm using smugmug. I played around with saturation and added blue with color variation and got a whole different look!

Pixel Popper

That's great! How about posting the new image so we can see it in the larger format and new color scheme.

exploradora

Here's the new version. Better or Worse?

Little T

I think this is a great picture, i wonder how it would look though if u took out the darker area at the bottom and a little bit off the top.....


......

If you dont mind me retouching.

Pixel Popper

For what it's worth, this is just an opinion, and I'm not sure how to go about technically achieving this suggestion. First, I would take the advise from above and crop a little of of the top and the bottom, which is easy to do, but beyond that, I wonder if there is something you can do to lighten the the waves so that the head and shoulders of the surfer stand out more against the dark water? With this newer version, the surfer is lost a little bit in the darkness.

I don't personally have the skills in Photoshop to tell you how to do that, but I'm sure someone on here can. Anyone?

DesertRat

The dark band on the bottom works for me. The sand, waves, horizon, and cloud layers form a series of horizontal lines all the way from bottom to top. The color and contrast is great in the modified shot! The surfer and boats add scope to the symmetry of the land, sea, and sky.

Mike