Best Photo Editing Software

[tursiops]

the background is bright green due to the very slow shutter.

Shutter speed affects color in an ambient light photo?

 

[davehicks]

Shutter speed affects color in an ambient light photo?

Yes, absolutely. You control background exposure and color with shutter speed. The lower your shutter the more color and light from the background are exposed. The higher the shutter the blacker and darker your background will be. For Flash/VidLight photos the Foreground is exposed by the artificial lighting, while the background is all about the shutter speed.

If you look at your camera's light meter it is best to point to the background, lower the shutter until the meter is near-zero. If you specifically want a black background aim for 1/125 or faster. If you want the water color aim for 1/60th.

 

[tursiops]

Yes, absolutely. You control background exposure and color with shutter speed. The lower your shutter the more color and light from the background are exposed. The higher the shutter the blacker and darker your background will be. For Flash/VidLight photos the Foreground is exposed by the artificial lighting, while the background is all about the shutter speed.

If you look at your camera's light meter it is best to point to the background, lower the shutter until the meter is near-zero. If you specifically want a black background aim for 1/125 or faster. If you want the water color aim for 1/60th.

You are describing matching a flash/video light to ambient light, so that you are correctly exposing both foreground and background.
I -- and the OP -- are describing ambient light only....no additional artificial light introduced.

Even in your explanation, how does all the green occur...in the foreground as well as in the background water? Overexposure does not insert green.

 

[davehicks]

You are describing matching a flash/video light to ambient light, so that you are correctly exposing both foreground and background.
I -- and the OP -- are describing ambient light only....no additional artificial light introduced.

Even in your explanation, how does all the green occur...in the foreground as well as in the background water? Overexposure does not insert green.

The shutter will impact on the background water color. It's clearly over saturated and blown out, not a natural green color at all. The shutter is likely very slow in the photo. And flash vs ambient makes no difference when the background is open water as in this case.

As for the foreground, it's going to reflect the color of the ambient light. This is a good example of why artificial lighting is needed. It might be improved somewhat by adjusting white balance or even a filter over the lens, but it really needs flash to get natural colors.

And some water is green...

 

[tursiops]

Sometimes....

 

[davehicks]

Sometimes....
View attachment 530728

Sacrilege! We are very proud of our Emerald Seas in the Pacific Northwest.

 

[Chris Ross]

Here is the worst out of them all... I played around with the others on my Mac book photo software and sort of salvaged them. I tried with this one but I don't think there is any saving this one lol!

That is really green, no saving that - what settings and camera did you use - I assume it's ambient light only.

 

[ReadyDiverOne]

@Chris Ross and @tursiops, I guess I wasn't clear or maybe we're saying the same thing. First, regarding shooting your strobe in a room above water--I assume we're talking shooting in Manual and RAW. My point was that I don't see how one can replicate how dark or light the underwater conditions are by turning off the room lights or dimming them. As you know, the light or lack thereof underwater can change very dramatically in 10 feet or so, and so if you're at 100 feet it may be a lot darker (depending on whether is is clear or cloudy up top or not) than it is at 50 feet. And light is not light at depth; it is totally different in terms of strobe use. So I think it would be hard to replicate those variances in a dark(ened) room, and I've never heard anyone (eg, from backscatter or bluewaterphoto) recommend that approach. Everyone I've spoken with--and all the Internet sites I've researched--suggest getting shutter and aperture where you want and then experimenting with the strobes' power output.

Second, and very much relatedly, as you know, at depth, one uses shutter speed to "dial a blue" and to achieve the color one wants in the background, since the strobes will light the foreground irrespective of shutter speed. So the faster the shutter the darker blue the background. As noted, the shutter speed will not affect the strobes, since they fire far faster than the shutter ever could, so the amount of light provided by the strobes is almost entirely a function of the power setting you have them on. Now, let's say that you like the way the background of your shot looks shutter-wise, and you're happy with your aperture, but when you fire the strobes your foreground is too dark or too hot. Above water, without strobes, if you like your speed and aperture settings, then maybe you adjust your ISO or even your exposure compensation. But neither of those work well underwater: as noted, adjusting your shutter will only affect the BACKGROUND and not the foreground where the strobes are firing. Similarly, increasing ISO or EV will increase light receptiveness for the ENTIRE photo, meaning both the background and the foreground will be more (or less, as the case may be) exposed. But again, that's not what you want, we've agreed you like the way the background (shutter speed) looks and the aperture. Moreover, because the strobes are so powerful, increasing the ISO or EV even a little bit usually results in the foreground getting blown out--strobes are really really sensitive to increased ISO.

So for all these reasons, you want to first dial in your shutter and aperture at the lowest ISO you can achieve that makes the background look good/blue, etc., and then use the strobe power levels to get the foreground exposure the way you like it.

Here are a few examples where I used this technique: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmFrVnhn

I hope this makes sense. Thanks.

Ps. One additional note: the YS-D2s are so powerful I have yet to encounter a wide-angle shot I could not get with them on or near full power, see, e.g., the very wide shot of the fans in the link.

@davehicks is spot on! See my post:

 

[ReadyDiverOne]

Getting back to the OP's question: Since I'm heavily invested in the Mac environment, I store and edit by RAW photos in Apple Photos, but I use several plugins that work great with Photos. Here's my general work flow:

--open photo and choose Edit With Dfine2--this is a Nik Collection plugin and it is FANTASTIC at removing noise
--perform Dfine2 noise removal, save photo, back to Apple Photos
--do major light, color, curves, white balance editing in Photos--Photos does a GREAT job fixing white balance, and has individual color sliders for more precise editing (but Viveza 2 is better, see next)
--if need better more precise editing (like want to brighten only one part of photo, saturate another, etc.,) edit photo in Viveza 2 (Nik Collection); fantastic program allows pinpoint light/color adjustment
--if necessary, crop in Photos
--if major backscatter, use Pixelmator Pro--this app has an amazing clone function that can get rid of backscatter better and with less artifacts than almost anything I've seen
--will sometime finalize with Sharpener Pro 3 RAW​

That's it!

 

[mcohen1021]

It may not be the best but I have used Irfanview for years and it is free