Kelpfish

Hi Robert,

How was the shore diving? I was comparing the two resorts and one appears to have a MUCH nicer house reef (the more expensive one, of course).  So do you have any opinion on the extra cost and whether it's worth it?

Thanks,

Joe

As other have said, Kri is special. They have Cape Kri as their "house reef", which during my 20 days stay in Raja Ampat was the best dive I did. Loads (4-5?) of pygmy seahorse, clown frogfish, blacktip, whitetip, napoleons, and very big schools of barracudas and snappers. And Max is a very nice host as well.

 

/Björn

Was this unlimited diving? Or did you have to pay extra for house reef diving?

What is the preferred airport that one would fly into, Jakarta or Manado? I suspect that there are more flight options out of Jakarta. 

Thanks, Alex & Andy.  Always nice to see ones work in print.

Hi Julian,

Good capture.  The color balance looks a little off.  The coralline isn't pink on my monitor. I changed it a tad with a color balance layer for the pink algae and then another one for the sculpin.  I also would use your dodge and burn tools to help make the sculpin pop and stand out from the coralline like I did here.  Their coloration, as you probably know, is meant to be cryptic, meaning they are pinkish like the algae in order to blend in with it and hide from predators.  So separating it from the algae is important.  I would also consider cropping.  I cropped the bottom because the in-focus coralline competes with the in-focus fish.  The bokeh helps separate the fish from the coralline so as a judge in a competition I would consider that aspect.  It also helps with the rule of the thirds, not having the head right in the middle of the image.  I also applied a levels layer and a slight brightness and contrast layer.