Hi,

I was surprised to find that the attached photo was not published. I personally loved the Bokeh created by my very wide-open aperture yet maintaining the crispness of the eyes. 

Thoughts on what I could have done better would be appreciated.

Regard

Nand

Hello Nand Kapadia,

Thank you very much for showing your photo on this forum.

The process of treating photos on 1X is quite complicated and many photographers often ask us why the photo was not published. It is certainly not up to us. Our task is to help find a different view of the author's photo, support him in post-production processes using our knowledge and experience. Each of us often proposes a different approach to the same image, but the photographer always decides about its final shape. You can read the treatment process itself at https://1x.com/about/faq. Nevertheless, I saw some interesting photos on your website that were published. So you have already achieved your first successes! Congratulations!

Let's go back to your photo. Indeed, you showed your eyes clearly, i.e. the classic portrait. The surroundings are also important. In PSCC 2022, I proposed to remove two corals from the belly of the fish, which were very distracting. In addition, in the CR, using a circular filter, I slightly darkened the surroundings of the fish to better bring it out from the background. Finally, I removed the yellow spots on the belly of the fish. In my opinion, now the fish, and above all its head, is better exposed.

Of course, this is only my suggestion for your photos.

All the best

Slawomir Kowalczyk - SC.

Hello, @ Nand Kapadia

It's great to be taken back to the water again. Your underwater images are actually very interesting. It's an area that I have to explore more. There could be many reasons why your image was not published and we can only guess them. Personally, when I look at this image I want to experience a better understanding of the environment the eel lives in. So I would recommend for another time to give us more understanding about the surroundings of the subject. I can understand that you wanted to present the eel close up,  I tried to demonstrate what I mean and so I took your image back to Photoshop. Actually I didn't do much. Firstly I used the crop tool to enlarge the image and I blend it in the missing parts with the content every crop icon. Afterwards I used SmartPhotoEditor Studio by Anthropics to define the image with some contrast. However that did not work out well. So I just applied some sharpening on it. This is of course my point of view and it is mostly totally different from yours and other photography lovers. Take care...have great light.

Cicek Kiral SC

Hi Nand welcome back to " The Real Critique " and thank you for sharing this fine image. - I see Slawomir Kowalczyk and Cicek Kiral have already given you some wonderful feedback so I will not go over old ground.

See Attach Back into Camera Raw I used the grad tool from left to right to darken the whol left side of the image as I thought this was far too bright for an underwater shot - Next I cloned out quite a bit of the bright parts of your backdrop to help the viewer enjoy the main attraction. Last I sharpened the whole image a little more.. - Followed by a little dodge and burn all over....

Thank you Slawomir Kowalczyk, Cicek Kiral & Daniel Springgay for your wonderful comments and ideas on improvement. While some people call me a purist for not editing my photos, the real reason is I don't know how to do some of the things you mentioned in your comments.  

Hello, @ Nand Kapadia

I started my PS skills with youtube and got really good information there. Then I subscibed on Kelbyone. That's when the real improvements started. Have great light...

Thank you. I will try out Kelbyone.