How to post process underwater images?

Yannis1976 · Jul 7, 2018

During the last couple of years I have used several sensor cameras from 1/2,3 up to recently 4/3. Although the resolution, details and dynamic range of the m43 sensor is far superior, I still can't match the colors I would like. Any ideas would be appreciated:

Should I move the Tint slider more on the right (red)?

Colors are fine here, but distance was very close as well

Again the green case is more than I would like

Everything fine here

and here...

Reverted to bw

--
Yannis

Yannis Tzevelekos

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Barmaglot_07 · Jul 7, 2018

Easiest way to do it is to shoot in RAW, then use spot white balance on something neutral-colored (sand, rock, another diver's tank, etc). If you can't find something in a specific image, try using another image taken in similar circumstances and copying the resulting settings from there.

PHXAZCRAIG · Jul 7, 2018

1, Always shoot in RAW. Try to use the lowest ISO possible while getting at least a minimally-fast shutter speed. (I try to fix shutter at 1/160th to minimize blurry fish.)

2, What are you using to post-process? I use mostly Lightroom, sometimes Nikon software when I'm traveling.

3. The key is to get a reasonably-close white balance. For this you need some sort of eyedropper tool to click on a neutral spot. Values can be wildly different. Good places to try using the eyedropper tool are metal parts on a diver's scuba gear, black diver gear, black shadows, white spots on fish, crustaceans or coral and the like.

4. Depending on the lighting, dynamic range can be extreme. I use strobes, and I often get hot spots next to dark spots that need to be brought together. I very often have to reduce highlights from 75-100% to see detail around the hot spots, while at the same time I need to boost shadows to see more dark details. And adjust (up or down) exposure levels. To reduce haze in the water, I will pull the black slider down to where the histogram almost touches pure black.

Here is an example. The first shot was taken by my wife, of me, using some JPG mode on a Canon s120 with no strobe. The water conditions seem about what I recall, which was that it was kind of murky. The second shot was taken on the same dive, of my wife, in the same conditions, but processed per above.

--
Phoenix Arizona Craig
www.cjcphoto.net

Yannis1976 · Jul 7, 2018

Barmaglot_07 said:
Easiest way to do it is to shoot in RAW, then use spot white balance on something neutral-colored (sand, rock, another diver's tank, etc). If you can't find something in a specific image, try using another image taken in similar circumstances and copying the resulting settings from there.

All were shot at raw, but still I cannot match the colors afterwards...

Yannis1976 · Jul 7, 2018

PHXAZCRAIG said:
1, Always shoot in RAW. Try to use the lowest ISO possible while getting at least a minimally-fast shutter speed. (I try to fix shutter at 1/160th to minimize blurry fish.)

so s mode and raw? These shots were raw files

PHXAZCRAIG said:
2, What are you using to post-process? I use mostly Lightroom, sometimes Nikon software when I'm traveling.

lightroom

PHXAZCRAIG said:
3. The key is to get a reasonably-close white balance. For this you need some sort of eyedropper tool to click on a neutral spot. Values can be wildly different. Good places to try using the eyedropper tool are metal parts on a diver's scuba gear, black diver gear, black shadows, white spots on fish, crustaceans or coral and the like.

I haven’t tried that...

PHXAZCRAIG said:
4. Depending on the lighting, dynamic range can be extreme. I use strobes, and I often get hot spots next to dark spots that need to be brought together. I very often have to reduce highlights from 75-100% to see detail around the hot spots, while at the same time I need to boost shadows to see more dark details. And adjust (up or down) exposure levels. To reduce haze in the water, I will pull the black slider down to where the histogram almost touches pure black.

Good points, some of them I already do. Don’t you use the dehaze tool?

PHXAZCRAIG said:
Here is an example. The first shot was taken by my wife, of me, using some JPG mode on a Canon s120 with no strobe. The water conditions seem about what I recall, which was that it was kind of murky. The second shot was taken on the same dive, of my wife, in the same conditions, but processed per above.

--
Phoenix Arizona Craig
www.cjcphoto.net

--
Yannis

Yannis Tzevelekos

Explore Yannis Tzevelekos’s 969 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

https://www.viewbug.com/member/Yannis76

Yannis1976 · Jul 7, 2018

PHXAZCRAIG said:
3. The key is to get a reasonably-close white balance. For this you need some sort of eyedropper tool to click on a neutral spot. Values can be wildly different. Good places to try using the eyedropper tool are metal parts on a diver's scuba gear, black diver gear, black shadows, white spots on fish, crustaceans or coral and the like.

The eyedropper tool can make miracles! However in Lightroom it seems to work only on black surfaces...

PHXAZCRAIG · Jul 7, 2018

Yannis1976 said:
Yannis1976 said:

3. The key is to get a reasonably-close white balance. For this you need some sort of eyedropper tool to click on a neutral spot. Values can be wildly different. Good places to try using the eyedropper tool are metal parts on a diver's scuba gear, black diver gear, black shadows, white spots on fish, crustaceans or coral and the like.

Click to expand...

The eyedropper tool can make miracles! However in Lightroom it seems to work only on black surfaces...

It will work on white surfaces just fine, if they are not over-exposed.

I have Lightroom Classic - no dehaze tool.

If you can't find a perfect neutral object, just click on anything until you feel you are in the ballpark. Then, if colors seem muted, raise the color temp. If they seem 'off', play with the hue slider.

With ambient lighting, you can't expect miracles. Anything in the distance is going to have a color cast.

PHXAZCRAIG · Jul 7, 2018

S- mode. Actually, I generally shoot in manual mode, but I try to fix the shutter speed to 1/160th. I need to stay under the sync speed (1/250th) and have enough shutter speed to freeze some motion and help make up for the unsteadiness of the camera. On my RX100, it was difficult at first to get everything set up in manual mode, and if I shot aperture priority (for depth of field, and to try to sharpen up the corners), I was seeing shutter speeds drop to 1/30th.

Since I normally shoot with strobes, I try to fix shutter speed, aperture (F8-F32, depending on lens and subject), ISO 64 and let the flash power vary. If I am shooting wide angle and ambient, I set shutter speed and aperture, and I let the ISO vary.

I almost never do video and have no good idea what settings to use.

At least with strobe, post-processing doesn't just make the image 'correct', it can make it 'better'. As in 'making a work of art'. You don't have to make it 100% accurate - who's to say a strobe-lit subject is accurate to start with? So I just try to make it look good, with varying degrees of success.

kelpdiver · Jul 8, 2018

if you want to go max effort, bring the grey card under and snap shots of it occasionally.

But normally sand, or part of a diver gives you a suitable context to use the eye dropper against. If one image doesn't have a subject, use the values from another - it should be in the ball park.

At worst, you can do it by hand with the two sliders, but I find that to be a bit tough on the shots where you have nothing else.

CRdam · Jul 9, 2018

Hello Yannis,

Can you upload for example the fist photo in RAW. So we can see if some of us can tweak it a little?

Thanks,

Chris

Yannis1976 · Jul 9, 2018

CRdam said:
Hello Yannis,

Can you upload for example the fist photo in RAW. So we can see if some of us can tweak it a little?

Thanks,

Chris

Sure, where can I upload it?

nafik · Jul 9, 2018

Step 1. Assign one of you custom buttons to be a custom white balance

step 2. When you see your next UW model, aim the camera at the palm of your hand and push that custom whiite balance button. Your white balance is set.

You can do it ahead of time say when you change the depth you are at.

no more time wasted at the computer, your white balance will always be correct. BTW, you will not need strobes either, unless you are into macro.

i use this method since 2003.

.

Yannis1976 · Jul 9, 2018

nafik said:
Step 1. Assign one of you custom buttons to be a custom white balance

step 2. When you see your next UW model, aim the camera at the palm of your hand and push that custom whiite balance button. Your white balance is set.

You can do it ahead of time say when you change the depth you are at.

no more time wasted at the computer, your white balance will always be correct. BTW, you will not need strobes either, unless you are into macro.

i use this method since 2003.

.

CRdam · Jul 11, 2018

Hallo Yanni,

i looked on flickr and other sites but it looks that they cannot handle raw photos.

Maybe somebody else has an idea to upload photos in Raw?

Gr

Chris

Barmaglot_07 · Jul 11, 2018

You can share any file type that you want from your free Google Drive or OneDrive account, or Dropbox for that matter.

vlab · Jul 20, 2018

I always use RAW. First I use DPP (Canon), Fix Sharpness, Blown Highlight some Contrast and Tone. After that I go to CS6 usualy Auto Tone, and adjust colors to my like. Here are few:

over exposed seahorse · Jul 21, 2018

Yannis1976 said:
During the last couple of years I have used several sensor cameras from 1/2,3 up to recently 4/3. Although the resolution, details and dynamic range of the m43 sensor is far superior, I still can't match the colors I would like. Any ideas would be appreciated:

Should I move the Tint slider more on the right (red)?

Again the green case is more than I would like

Reverted to bw

--
Yannis
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127079204@N06/
https://www.viewbug.com/member/Yannis76

Quick go in lightroom with the jpegs posted here, mostly using the white balance colour dropper on the sand areas, and the HSL tools for individual colours gave me this, you can probably do even better with the raw files.

--
See my photos at 500px: https://500px.com/huw_thomas06

over exposed seahorse · Jul 21, 2018

For instance, Vlab has posted a very nice set of images, tweaked to his colour preferences. If it were me however, I would want the water to look a bit bluer - its tropical water after all, and again a quick edit of the jpegs from here gives me this:

Neither is right or wrong, but Lightroom does give you a lot of flexibility to get them looking how YOU want them to.

--
See my photos at 500px: https://500px.com/huw_thomas06

kelpdiver · Jul 21, 2018

the purple fringing on the reedits doesn't work for me, but if you did that on the jpegs rather than raws, may be the cause.

In any event, I think you both have given the OP a view into the possible here.

How to post process underwater images?

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