Please critique this surfing shot

Took this photo yesterday at the beach. There weren't any surfers other than this kid here, i presume because of the location, as well as the fact that its $25.00 to park.

Please C&C...thanks for looking
John

The picture is over-exposed. I agree that the histogram does not indicate that, but the detail has been washed out of the highlights, and that's the bottom line.

Had this been taken in the mid-morning hours instead of at high noon, the sun would be lighting up your subject and he would not be blacked out. Furthermore, the glare from the water surface would have been less, and the image would probably been exposed closer to the correct level.

The composition would be improved if the field of view were expanded so as to allow more empty space at the left. This would give the movement a space into which to glide.

Yeah, pretty much overexposed in the highlights and underexposed in the shadows due to the source light. You could try a curves change and mask out the surfer. I did a quick edit and it does help to pull the exposure back a bit.

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No, no no. Please go ahead and edit. How do you turn on "Image Editing OK"?

Here ya go man ... rough edit (yes i missed some spots) ..... with a bit of masks and layers it can still look great .... Bummer about the ISO thing ... dont feel bad, i've been there, hell i think we all have ....

I re-cropped it a bit but would have liked to show a bit more motion between frame left and right but no amount of PP can fix that..... I think it's a good shot and a great learning expierence..... keep shooting and posting i'm looking forward to seeing more !

25 bucks to park??? was this in orange county?

No. Paradise Cove, Malibu CA.

How do you use layers and masks? Is that available in CS2?

Next time, swim out and use fill flash.

do a google search on photoshop layers ... youtube always has a TON of videos that can walk you through PP .... yes they are available in CS2

gotcha. Thanks a lot. The edited version looks a lot better.

I just dealt with the same question about edit/repost permission....

It's a setting in your profile, so click "User CP" in the top bar, then click "Edit Profile" in the left menu bar that comes up. There will be an "Additional Information" box at the bottom where you can select "yes" for "Image edit and repost permission". That will make the link show up in your posts.