MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal 2025 World Surf Championships

Last weekend was a treat for us, as we had the MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal 2025 World Surf Championships happening in our backyard in Supertubos in Peniche, Portugal!

After a month of more or less solid rain and during most of the first week of the championships, it was great to see the sun come out as the finals took place. There was a huge crowd on the beach and we were all treated to some fine surfing skills from the champions. Removing stray objects from a crowded beach shot is something I've covered in detail — how to remove elements from an image with Luminar Neo is a technique I used heavily on the Peniche shots.

In the end, Caroline Marks from the USA, and Yago Dora from Brasil won respectively.

For those who enjoy the photo editing process, I edited the images using CaptureOne, and created a video showing the steps I used to create a mask and then improve the exposure of the subject in Caroline Marks' image of her celebrating her win. The sun was very strong, and bright making exposure difficult, but the end result made a great image! The coastal light at Supertubos is dramatic but unpredictable; if you want to swap a blown-out sky after the fact, adding a replacement sky in Luminar Neo takes under two minutes.

If you've had experience using or creating masks in CaptureOne let me know in the comments below, and let us know how you got on using them.