First of all, the picture is great. Good dynamics and staging. You have the basics down.
The only issues are that it is slightly over exposed, and the glare on the fishes head. The glare on the head is an easy fix. Think of it like a mirror. Direct the mirror away from the lens and the glare is gone. The sight over exposure is evident in the white shirt being blown out, and the low contrast in the sky. Because of the longer explanation I will make it a new paragraph...
Are you using a polarizing filter? I would be using one for this shot. If you are using one there is a quick fix. It's called exposure compensation. You don't have to use it all the time. But because you are shooting in program mode and not changing your shutter speed it's a must to know how to do. Behind the release button there is a little button that has a +/- on it. While looking at the screen of the camera hold it down. You will see it light up on the screen. You adjust it by spinning the thumb dial. I would set it for -1.0 for the direct sunlight shots. And if you review them and they are still too light maybe go to -1.5. For your second picture that you adjusted the contrast very high, try using the -1.5 to -2.0 to make sure you have the color correct.
As for editing. I didn't edit my pictures. I just cropped them a little to make sure I didn't have any location identifiers in the frame and put my name on them. The only thing I really use Photoshop for is to add special effects. Take more pictures and it will have more to choose from. Also ask your anglers to try and avoid wearing white. Your first picture was edited fine. The second picture you adjusted a bunch of things. As far as i can tell you adjusted your brightness, contrast. If you under expose the picture in the camera it will make it so that you don't have the halo effect on the horizon and around the heads. Adjusting the contrast way up always looks sweet. But you will need to take down your saturation a couple (around -4 or -5) to correct the colors. I really think the key is to make the color tones as close to real as possible. Skin tone really shows over saturation so watch look there first.
And now the long part. Camera Settings. These are what I would be using if I was shooting in program mode.
Start by placing your camera on the “P” setting. And enter the shooting menu. I will go down the menu in order to make it easier for me. I have the camera in my hand while I am typing this. Go to picture control. Select Vivid. Don’t adjust anything else in the vivid scale or it will make your colors look not realistic. Image Quality. I shoot RAW, but I don’t expect any one else to. That’s a pretty big file. JPEG Fine is good for most. Select the Image size as large. This will give you the most material to edit. For the white balance I selected cloudy. This helps you fill your shadows and doesn’t darken your highlights to bad. ISO setting I only use 100 shooting during the day. Sunrise I might use 200 or 400, but never anything higher with the d3000. It makes the pictures grainy. Noise Reduction should be on. Release Mode set as Continuous. That’s so you can get your jump shots. Also when you take a picture of a fish it gives you more frames to choose from. The more you take the better your chances are of getting “the shot” I think on the mini trip with Erik I shot in the neighborhood of 50-70 pictures, and I only used 4.
Hope this helps. Post up any more questions that you have and I will help ya out!
-Richard
