9 replies to this topic

[jeremypayne]

We've all been there ... at least those of us who are stupid enough to drag cameras with us while we go scuba diving ... You get back from the dive, and you look at the pictures you took and you find there's that one picture that looks good ... except for that blue/green cast dominating subject and background. It looks flat and you remember thinking how beautiful and colorful the fish was when you took its picture.
What can you do? Well ... here's a method that can often return significant natural-looking color to your underwater images that have that blue/green cast. This technique works best with images without a lot of water column and lots of colorful stuff. I'm using Photoshop CS3 for this tutorial, but most of the effects are easy to replicate in other editors.

Full tutorial can be found on my blog ... HERE.

Thanks to David for sharing his picture.

[cor]

Very interesting technique Jeremy, thanks for posting.

[echeng]

Yes -- thanks for posting! That's a great quick & dirty solution. I posted a link to your article from the front page of Wetpixel.

[Sven]

Some more info about this issue:

2005 tutorial by Denny Tang on using inverted blurred layer:
http://www.graphics....S...e&artid=178

If there is any red present in the red channel, manually adjusting the levels might help well, quickly and with full control.

If not, you can try to create some kind of red channel, but I have to admit I have no good experience with it yet.
http://www.focusinde..... tutorail.pdf

Converting to black and white is sometimes the best option to me.

Sven.

[jeremypayne]

Some more info about this issue:
2005 tutorial by Denny Tang on using inverted blurred layer

Seems entirely possible that's where "my" technique was "born". It was described to me in words on the back of a dive boat by another photographer in November of 2006.

[emaltorio]

Same technique can be used to improve color saturation , by not inverting the averaged blurred layer

[shark6047]

Thanks Jeremy.
I'm still learning PS and your tutorial works like a champ!

ed

[jeremypayne]

I'm glad people are finding this useful and was very flattered to see the post featured on the front page.

Thanks, everyone!

I've never had so many visitors to my blog in one day ... there's usually 15-25 people and yesterday there were over 300!

[DavidScubadiver]

Jeremy, I posted a link to your article on another of the photo sites. But it was not completely altruistic since you have link to my blog in there.

[marcw]

try this filter with photoshop, it does a great job and is simple.

http://www.adobe.com...p;extid=1042430