Jetski Races

[Magik]

Mr. O.T. moderator for the photo gallery suggested I post this photo here for your input/review. This was shot at Suisun City CA. harbor as they hosted Jetski races. Hope you enjoy...appreciate any and all constructive comments/suggestions.

[SmartWombat]

Looks like you flipped it left/right, because the writing on the helmet and the goggles band is the wrong way.
It does look better this way round, the motion of the jetski is against the left-to-right reading direction your eyes naturally scan in.

But it's soft.
And there seems to be a little colour fringing that could be corrected.
The face of the rider has detail that can be recovered from that shadow.
Probably better to do local adjustments than a global lightening of all the shadows.

[Magik]

Thanks for your input, Paul. I did flip the image. Just thought it looked better that way. I think the softness is due to downsizing to put on the forum and some major cropping. I am new to photography...what is colour fringing? I appreciate your help.

[Photo-John]

I saw the thumbnail for this one on the gallery and then couldn't find it again to look more closely. So I'm glad you posted it here. Yeah, it looks a little soft, but your timing was perfect and it's a great composition. It's not going to be a magazine cover or anything. But it sure is an eyecatching photo and I'm glad you posted here.

Tell us a little about how you shot it please. The real benefit of the sports photography forum is sharing sports shooting techniques so we can all improve our photos.

Regarding the sharpness - how big was the original and did you use any Unsharp Mask when you resized it? Unsharp mask is critical whenever you resize a photo. If you don't know what that is let us know and we'll give you a little lesson

[Magik]

Thanks for your help, Photo-John. I shot this using with my Nikon D90/18-200mm vr lens. Camera mode on "sports." I used the multiple shutter high setting so I could get multiple shots at different angles. I slowly walked horizontal from the subjects and let the camera fly. 4.5 photos per second gets alot of shots. I just go back and delete most of them. The original size was 2620 x 1872 and included another rider behind this subject. I cropped down to just this subject and really liked the way the rider appears to burst out of the wash. I have no clue as to using Unsharp Mask. I have downloaded Gimp and understand it will allow me to do this. I would love a little lesson. Thanks so much. You guys, this site, are outstanding! I know of no where else one could find such excellent feedback...friendly...professional guidance...and for free! Where do I donate?

[SmartWombat]

Colour fringing is just what it sounds like, aroung the edges of things, you get tiny fringes of colour that aren't there in the real world.

Sometimes it's caused by saving as JPG and it's an artifact of the compression process.
Sometimes it's when you capture the image, often you see purple edges to twigs and leaves against the light.
Sometimes it's the lens, particularly at the edges of the frame, and it's blue/red on opposite sides of a highlight, or green/yellow.

I use Lightroom for most image adjustments, which is very good at controlling this, and it's simple to do. I haven't worked out how to do it in Photoshop yet.

[SportsPhotography]

Stop using the pre programmed functions on your camera.
These kind of shots could be made on 1/320th of a second to start with.
My guess is that besides your heavy crop you also used a very high ISO speed to maintain your aperture and the use of the speed of your shutter.
In Photoshop I did some sharpening did some adjustments on the levelling and curves, but the grainyness could be a bit less using a filter like noise ninja or neat image.
The colour of the water in your picture was a little bit grey now it looks a little bit more sparklier.
I also used a small border which I feathered on a small opacity to take the attention to the man on the jetski and not to all the water.

[Photo-John]

Nice post-processing. However, one of the rules on the site is that you don't edit anyone's photos without their permission. Photo ownership is sacred here and some people don't want anyone editing their photos. I know you meant well and I think you're offering useful advice. But since this is a serious photo site, we need to treat photo ownership with extra respect