S&S 8000g How to make the images look good?

I have just returned from Bonaire with 100+ photos from a Sea & Sea 8000G. I read the book, and used the highest resolution settings. I don't understand how to work with the large tif files I get. The program provided with the camera will get the images from the camera to the computer, but with the resolution of the camera, I am suprised that these photos look grainy and the color is really poor. Photos taken on land look great. Since I am pretty ignorant about this camera I would appreciate some advice on how to work with these images. What program should I use to print and edit the photos? Is the lack of color due to not having a proper filter on the camera, or do I need to color correct the images with a program. What programs work with these files? The coral and fish in Bonaire were really great, and I am concerned that I screwed up the photos. Hopefully not, but if I did, I get another chance in a few months. Your help is appreciated.

hi Rick

can't say i am that familiar with the files from that camera but i did own one of their first digital cameras and the photos were unacceptable due to noise. But that doesn't sound like the problem with yours as you say the topside shots look fine.

Some of the problems you could have encountered are due to a few things.

Did you use zoom a lot? you will certainly lose sharpness and colour by using zoom trying to fill the frame and not getting close enough to your subject. To get good colour you would need to be in the top 30 feet of the water column or within 2 feet of your subject.

Were you using an external flash? If not, then you would want to turn off your internal flash for any subject further than about 2 feet away from you, that will just light up the water column in front of the lens and give you backscatter.

For things further than 2 feet yes a filter would be a great help (and no flash), there is a new Auto Magic Filter that would be perfect for this.

For editing your pics, try downloading the trial version of Adobe Photshop Elements. That will give you some great tools to try. one of the better things would be trying auto levels in there, sometimes it works quite nicely.

If you could post an example of one of your shots that would help to diagnose problems...

Hope that helps

M