Deep Water Color Correction

Hi all,

I have a little problem here with my deep water pictures I shot between 90 to 100 feet. I shot those pictures with available light and obviously I have tons of blue in them and they are dark.

I didn't have any luck with fixing those pictures in Photoshop, I tried using curves, hue and saturation. But I was wondering if there is any other software out there that is able to enhance my pictures?

Thanks for all your input.

Best,

RBN

Hello RBN,

Welcome to Wetpixel....I'm afraid the only answer is....Strobes....it's too deep for filters and available light and there's not much any correction program can do without some light on your subject

Karl

Actually, depending on the subject and compostion, you can try a technique traditionally called plate blending.

In Photoshop, you select the Red Channel (at the bottom right hand side). This should have virtually no information, based on your post.

Then you go to the Image menu and select Apply Image. In source, select the green channel. In blending mode, choose Lighten, and for amount, select something between 50 to 80%.

Redo the same thing by doing Apply Image with the Blue Channel as source, and 15 to 40% for Amount.

Actual values to use for amount vary with each photo.

You then reselect the RGB channel, which should give you a colour photo with little contrast.

You can then use the Curves tool to correct the colours and contrast.

This technique is pretty time consuming, takes a lot of fiddling to get it right, and is obviously not perfect, but it should help a fair bit. I'd try it on a few shots with large subjects first (e.g. wrecks).

Good luck!

If you post an example we might be able to give some tips.

this technique was covered in detail both on wetpixel forums and digital diver

http://wetpixel.com/i.php/full/getting-rid...derwater-blues/

http://www.digitaldiver.net/lib_docs/color_cast.pdf

takes lots of time and practice to get right.

Strobe power is the easier fix.