shark photo and advice needed

[jas77]

Hi everyone,
I took this shark photo while on a shark dive in the bahamas last week. It was only my 4th ocean dive and I must say it was pretty intense! Anyways, I was just wondering what I could do with the photo to touch it up a bit. I will be using photoshop. I'm not really to familiar with all the settings on photoshop, and if I would even be able to touch up this photo at all. Thanks!

 

[Aggie Diver]

Holy crap, tell me that guy's wearing chain mail!

Pretty crazy picture, I don't even think in full armor I'd let something with teeth like that anywhere near my groin


AD

 

[jas77]

LOL.
Ya, they suit up with chain mail before they feed them! It was still pretty intense being only feet away from dozens of sharks while they were being fed and all I'm wearing is my 5 mm wetsuit!

 

[Dee]

There's not much to fix! You either weren't using a strobe or were too far away for it to be effective. You might tweak the brightness and contrast but that won't make a big difference.

I couldn't do much with the BMP and compression by copying it.

 

[jas77]

Yup,
No strobe (I'll have to beg my wife to let me purchase one anytime soon), and I guess I was about 5-7 feet away. I didn't think I would be able to change too much about it, but I wasn't sure what photoshop could do. Thanks!

 

[blacknet]

Hello,

A few things to note here. A Strobe would have burned this image up really bad. Distance was ok, maybe abit to close.

I did some touchups (hope you don't mind) in potatoshop. This is what I did.

adjusted levels and color

OR if you are looking for detail convert it to gray scale and adjust the levels. It really depends on how the image is shot for that to work correctly.

Hope this helps.

Ed

 

[Cave Diver]

I personally like the b/w one...

 

[stiebs]

One thing that I usually do is use the auto levels adjust available in ACDSee or PhotoShop. I've done it on your photo, but hasn't really worked that well. It really needs a larger colour range to make the image look any better (For example photos of coral, or a colourful fish)

 

[blacknet]

Hello,

One rule that I live by, never ever ever ever ever do auto anything in potatoshop. There's much better methods of doing things like that. Same with levels, don't go there.

Ed

 

[stiebs]

Blacknet,

I make the same comparison to taking photos in the first place.
I would never tell a novice photographer to use a fully manual camera and expect great results. Instead, set it to auto, and slowly start to play with adjustments (eg, manual aperture and auto shutter).

The same goes for digital imagery. To get good results immediately, use an auto adjuster. To get better results overall, adjust colour balance, and other levels manually, but you need to be willing to make the extra time investment until you figure out exactly what you need to do to make an image look better.