Recents shots from Bay of Pigs, Cuba

PHXAZCRAIG wrote:

Edits in LR Not cropped, Custom WB, +0.27 Exposure, +100 shadows, +5 dehaze, +12 Saturation Some fine tuning in HSL

White balance seems OK on the above shot, but it could be brighter. And you have that big hole in the detail in the lower right - might consider cropping this image about the halfway point down, to eliminate most of the dead area.

This photo above was originally badly shot. The sponges are badly lit. Zoom was 31mm. I should has been 16mm to be closer and strobes would have lighten better the scenes. I don't know either (not remember) at what power I had them, but looking at the original I see strobes did not do their job. If it wasn't at 20m deep i will say the strobes did not fire at all.

This is the resized original

As per suggestions, I now left WB as i had customized, pushed exposure from +0.27 to +0.50 and cropped the image

Then, I increased contrast to +10, left the settings I had used in HSL for the water and pushed up saturation of orange. . T

The result is this (much better)

As per Craig's suggestions

Edits in LR from JPG original (not RAW) Custom WB +0.35 exp +7 clarity +26 dehaze +32 saturation

The above is close, but look how harsh the azure vase is in the background. To me, that's generally a case where you want to lower the highlights, and possibly the overall exposure. (Then increase exposure locally, or in shadows only, etc.)

Same case as above: badly shot. 31 mm, instead of 16 mm. Strobes not lighting correctly. See original below.

Edited from JPG. (RAW lost)

Post-processing did not really changed too much of the shot (mostly lighter and more saturation) , no WB. So better adjustments would have provided better results.

When you say "locally" do you and the use of the adjustment brush?

I applied your suggestions:

I had increased exposure to +.35, so I put it back to 0.  reduced HL to -35. Increased temp from +16 to + 30 Increased sat of orange in HSL,. And left general saturation as in first edit. the result is this:

As per Craig's suggestions

Edits in LR edits from JPG (raw was lost) +7 contrast -21 highlights +2 dehaze +15 saturation

Similar to the last one. There are some glary highlights. Imagine this scene as above-water and what it would look like if you put on a circular polarizer. The colors would darken, deepen and the highlights would look like glare was gone or reduced. In post the way I approach this is to start by lowering the highlights to the point that glare areas are gone. Then I work to overall lighten the remaining portions, if necessary.

Also processed from a JPG image. It was barely edited from the original. No WB. +7 contrast, -21 highlights (maybe  should have lowered more as you suggest) and +15 saturation (probably the more impacting adjustment made).

This was the original:

original resized

After WB to

+30 in each  Temp and Tint, HL in -100, contrast in +10, sat in +5 , some  spots removed and some minor adjustment of the blue in HSL the result is:

Much more colorful, maybe to much (but I am from the Caribbean and you know what that means

Your comments are welcome and appreciated.