Troporobo

That is a terrific result from a poor original, considering it was something like a 300K JPG. Nice work!

I’d say the two with a lot of backscatter are very difficult. The ornate ghost pipefish among a crinoid especially.

I have also uploaded some challenging RAW images. Good luck and keep us updated on progress!

Dave, you may have just saved me many hours of tedious work - thanks a lot!

I’m also a long time Lightroom user. I have a pretty basic workflow and probably use only 20% of its capabilities. My one major gripe is the lock-in nature of the subscription. If I decide to stop paying, or Adobe goes out of business, I’ll lose all my work. I keep meaning to export full size JPEGs of all my edited images just in case - that will be a major long term effort.

I forgot that you’re an LSD user (no aspersion intended!). I withdraw my battery advice.

Tim, my macro rig is very similar to yours, although different strobes, but it’s not nearly as negative. I’m curious why you need the boosters? I can do 3 macro dives taking maybe 80-100 exposures each time without changing batteries.

Many excellent points here that I also struggled to internalize for a long time until it finally clicked: find a nudi with as little behind it as possible, set exposure so that the water column is black (or dark blue, etc), set the strobe to expose the subject. It’s certainly possible without a snoot. This was taken in Anilao on a sunny day at moderate depth. ISO 100, f16, 1/160

I have a large inventory of those! 🙄. Let us know how to send them to you. It sounds like a very interesting project that I’ll be happy to contribute to.

Rich, this is just about perfect from my perspective. You’ve distilled the essence of much of this community. I’m sure you didn’t write this as the WP Manifesto but it could be that for me. Thanks a lot for taking the time to craft it and share!

This is a fantastic addition to the site. Preserving the knowledge base and making it easily accessible is real value addition. Thanks Rich!

There was a similar project documented on the old site some years ago. Might be worth searching Eric’s archive to see if that thread and is valuable photos were preserved https://wetpixel.echeng.com/

“Eric Cheng, who ran Wetpixel through its glory years, recently downloaded the entire site and being a software whizz, set about creating an extensive Wetpixel Wiki to chart the history of Wetpixel and the first 20 years of digital underwater photography.” The History of UW Photography

Inevitable, but still sad

Definitely a “code brown” moment at first, but a very cool encounter. I’m amazed that the shark was so chill with you swimming alongside with lights. Thanks for sharing!