Too Much Photoshop?

[RikRaeder]

What do you think?

After

Before

I've been practicing some various techniques lately and find myself ruining many otherwise passable shots. Loved this one so much I had to save it. Too much? Constructive criticisms on this (and others from my gallery) would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Kayla]

From a strictly non technical, average chick looking at your photo point of view, I like it!

 

[pakman]

maybe a little burn tool on the coral on the left. It sticks out vs the deep blue water like it was superimposed there. Maybe the same with the edge of the red coral (maybe add a slight blur to the water/coral edges?).

I'm far from being a PS expert...

 

[Scubakevdm]

Yoku deki m a s h i t a! (The darned thing won't let me write m*******a.)
Hey! First of all, it's great that you are taking pictures underwater and striving to improve. I'm no expert, but I've been taking pictures for a couple of years now, and I'm starting to get the hang of it. I will tell you this... Take the best pictures you can, photoshop them until you like them. I think you'll find that as you get more and more experience, the photoshop will taper off.
I look at the pictures I took when I first started out... the pictures that I felt were National Geographic material at the time with a new perspective now. But you know what? I've enjoyed taking every single picture on the way to where I am now, and I hope to enjoy taking every single picture from where I am now untill that last frame I squeeze off. I like them all.

Gambade

 

[bvmjethead]

It looks fake to me.

 

[Charlie99]

Whenever I wonder whether I've done too strong of an edit, I simply take the final version as a layer on top of the original version, and then vary the opacity on the edited layer.

I often decide that I have overcorrected and that it looks nicer bringing back in somewhere between 10 and 50% of the original (90 to 50% opacity on the fixed layer).

I'll do the same thing if I've used a couple different methods of processing --- levels vs. Mandrake, etc. Sometimes a blend of several methods looks better than any single one of them.

 

[sharky60]

Too much, too little...it's all in the eye of the beholder. If you like what you come up with in the end, that's all that counts.

 

[azcaddman]

what I like to use, is multiple adjustment layers (curves/levels, etc), with a mask applied to each, so that you can selectivly adjust areas of the photo, in this case 1 for the blue water, one for the background, and 1 for the fish/sponge.

you don't need (and it ends up looking better anyway) a precise 'edge' to the mask, just get close (or use the magnetic laso tool) .. but then the trick is to apply a gausian blur to the layer mask, this 'fuzzes' the edge of the corrections, making for a much smoother transition from one area to another. for most masks, I use a 150-250 pixel value for the blur (its based on the resolution of the image) for this low res orig file, I used a value of 10.

the water looks different than your copy, but that's because its not a paste in from another photo.

 

[scarefaceDM]

The depth of field is gone.I t looks like a - cut and paste into image - than a real shot with depth and composition. From my professional point of view.

Now keeping in mind I was not there, your eye will dictated what the true colur was at that time.

I took the liberty of doing a minor touch up of your before image to show you what I mean by depth and composition. I left the water pretty much the same but I did use a few things to enhance it alittle . The fish in the shot are a good source of depth. I like that perspective feel. Overall it is a good shot. With time, you will not have to work it in Photoshop too much.

cheers
Stephen