Started playing with my new R7 setup with CLOG3 video and wondering on underwater workflows.

Im very familiar with clog workflow on land and Resolve to an extent but U/W is a bit different here.

Specifically, the ability to deal with a washed out/bright water column, in particular ambient light shots.

Scenario, 5-10m deep tropical waters, ambient light, no filter, no video lights. Manual WB set at the time on a white card.

Water column often too bright, too washed out (and sometimes not blue enough).

What sort of techniques for addressing this exist in studio?

Colour slice?

Colour Waper?

Just the hue v sat/lum curves?

Something funky with depth maps?

I assuming bog standard qualifiers arent going to cut it due to reflection off fish and so on creating artefacts.

So in short, what techniques are good for 10bit log u/w to do the above?

Im running in YRGB with a DWG/Intermediate timeline (input CST for cinema gamut/clog3)

(I do also have deeper video light shots but those are easier).

Just an example here of some test shots.

I haven't really transitioned to Resolve yet (I've only had a computer capable of running it for a couple of months), but on this test shot, with a clear separation, you could definitely work on the water column using the Hue vs. Sat and Hue vs. Luma curves.

Just use the colour picker to isolate your blues, bump up the blues saturation a little, and lower their luma.

This is how I would a approach it in FCPX, and I'm sure it works similarly - probably better - in Resolve.

I find the colour slicer to be really helpful for water colour. I am almost always messing with the hue/sat/density of blues and cyans. Can also help somewhat with brightness in the water column.

If the shot allows it, pretty happy with the results of power windows + light/highlights/colour slicer adjustments to tame the upper regions - obviously a bit more shot specific. Maybe a curves approach would deal with this more efficiently...

Just playing with the colour slice and it seems to do a decent job. Particularly in lots of my clips the Cyan shifting towards blue and altering density.

Combining that with a hue v lum curve seems to be working OK without artefacts.