need help with snow picture!

[suprateam]

Hello all,
hoping for some advice. I've been shooting snowboarding action shots all winter on my nikon d50 and have had problems until now. It was a bright sunny day and i was shooting into the sun (but it doesn't appear in the photo). On the camera screen the picture looks good, with no blowouts. On the computer the picture looks amazing.

http://www.snowjapan.com/e/photogallery/kumapix_48.jpg

but when I go to develop the photo the darks are too dark. the riders jacket looks nearly black instead of purple.
Now, the only clue I have is that the histogram is very thin. Ok, so I guess I can maybe save the picture with some compromising in photoshop, but I'm more worried about the next time. Do I need to check the histogram at all times?? If I get the thin histogram again how can I fix that? is it by raising the f-value?

[edit]I was shooting in sports mode
thanks for your help

[some guy]

with snow pix, the camera metering will think that it's too bright therefore set for underexposure. so you need to jack up the exposure by +1 to force it to expose properly. play with the exposure compensation dial and get the hang of it.

[suprateam]

thanks! I'll try that out

[JTL]

Also, don't forget to use spot metering with high contrast images...