To surf or not to surf

[LeeIs]

A shot of a surfer about to go in the waters of Jaco beach in Costa Rica.

The first one is manipulated removing another surfer that was next to the subject & darkening the forground a bit to the true black silhouette effect .

In the second one I've added light and had to really think about it before posting it only becuase I don't like adding elements digitally that weren't in the photograph originally. But this one I liked so what the hey

Btw, sorry for pumping out so many threads. I hope you all understand I just came back from a vacation and I'm very eager to share these shots

[Paul.S.]

I like the shot without the additional manipulation. The light rays you've added are too bright to match the scene and too consistent in their individual widths to be natural even though you've tried to stagger them. They also seem slightly off in their respective vanisihing point when referenced to each other and as a group it seems to be off from the very faint rays you captured that were actualy there. Finaly the ligh rays would fade to almost nothing as they reached the ground as evidenced by the few rays that were there.

On a bright note, making truly believable rays is a PITA and I have never been happy with anything I've done in that regard.

Cheers.
P.

P.S. apologise for any typos, its early no coffee, ya know!

[jar_e]

Great pictures, but I'm with Paul on this one and I personally like the first one. It's a very nice silhouette photo, but the one thing I don't like with the silhouettes are the little thing in the dead centre of the silhouette part (a person maybe? a buoy?). Also, the mountains on the right somewhat take away from the silhouette feeling.

Great shot and can be fixed,

Jared

[gahspidy]

Good shot. Liban. I like the first version without the added rays of light. My suggestion, or critique here, is to crop off about 60% of the foreground as it is way too much. I like the other small silhouettes evident in the scene and would leave them. Also, I think the mountains in the bg are fine.