Objective:  Early morning dull lighting to mid morning high contrast lighting present an incredible challenge to surf photography.  (I don't even try to photograph surfers after 11:00 AM on a sunny day.) 

Capture NX2:

     - use CURVE at right to adjust overall darkness vs lightness of image.

         (e.g.. if image too dark, lighten entire image so sky acceptable.

Photoshop: 

  (flatten file, save and reopen file after each step)

  (lower contrast while processing, last step, add saturation)

    Crop to 10 x 14 image aspect ratio.

   Optimize Color:

     - Lighten selected areas of image:  IMAGE ... ADJUST ... CURVES ... lighten

           use HISTORY BRUSH selectively    

     - Darken selected areas of image:  IMAGE ... ADJUST ... CURVES ... darken

           use HISTORY BRUSH selectively

     - SELECT surfer and use CURVES to lighten if necessary

         (use Magnetic Lasso to draw loose circle around surfer...curves...history brush)

     - FILTER ... PICTOGRAPHICS    (change brightness and contrast to suit)

     - use IMAGE ... ADJUST ... AUTO COLOR if image still dull  (use opacity?)

   Increase Impact & Sharpness:

     - LAYER...DUPLICATE LAYER...FILTER...OTHER...HIGH PASS...HARD LIGHT

       LAYER...FLATTEN LAYER...FILTER...NOISEWARE PROFESSIONAL...

     - LAYER...DUPLICATE LAYER...FILTER...NIK SHARPENER   (opacity = 30%)

       LAYER...FLATTEN LAYER...

       IMAGE...ADJUSTMENTS...BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST   (contrast = 9)

Digital Enhancement:

     - LAYER...DUPLICATE LAYER...FILTER ... TOPAZ ... VIBRANCE...OK

       (opacity = 8% to 30%)

       LAYER...FLATTEN

       rename file  xxxxxxxxxx topvib30-35mb-tiff