How to remove backscatter in Lightroom?

[TightLines]

Snowdog01 recently posted this useful link for quickly removing backscatter in Photoshop:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ti...-photoshop-edit-underwater-photographers.html

Does anyone have a useful tutorial for removing backscatter in Lightroom?

Any other UW pertinent Lightroom tips and tutorials would also be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[beautybelow]

In Lightroom the only way I know of would be with the spot removal tool. For me though it is cumbersome and too slow to work with.

For removing spots and backscatter I always go directly to photoshop and prefer the clone stamp or healing brush tool.

 

[ScubaSteve]

FYI, that post by Devon Diver is not removing backscatter. It is correcting for color lost at depth. Backscatter is particulate floating in the water that often appears as "white-ish" dots in the picture due to them reflecting the light back at the camera. The only way to effectively remove backscatter is piece by piece.

 

[TightLines]

FYI, that post by Devon Diver is not removing backscatter. It is correcting for color lost at depth. Backscatter is particulate floating in the water that often appears as "white-ish" dots in the picture due to them reflecting the light back at the camera. The only way to effectively remove backscatter is piece by piece.

I believe he also outlines removing backscatter in PS.

No worries if there isn't a good way to do it in LR.

Thanks anyhow.

 

[ScubaSteve]

I believe he also outlines removing backscatter in PS.

No worries if there isn't a good way to do it in LR.

Thanks anyhow.

My bad. You are right. he does go into removing backscatter. Unfortunately it is going to be a manual and finikity process no matter what you use (assuming you want it done well so it is not obvious).

 

[beautybelow]

For removing spots and backscatter I always go directly to photoshop and prefer the clone stamp or healing brush tool.

That looks familiar.

Removing backscatter and particulates floating around I guess can be described as tedious. It is certainly time consuming if you do it right.

When I first started underwater photography that was a big part of my day...rushing home after diving all day and working on the photos. If I was lucky out of a couple of hundred photos I would have one or two I wanted to spend some time on.

This meant zooming in and starting in a corner and working my way through the whole image with either the clone stamp or now the healing brush, removing anything that looked like it didn't belong there. Some people say backscatter and particulate are a natural part of the picture, but I prefer clean images. Plus I enjoyed doing it.

It should be noted that the best way to begin removing backscatter however is while taking the picture. That's a whole other thread.

 

[Gilligan]

THIS is what I do in Photoshop. Not sure if you can do this in Lightroom.

 

[beautybelow]

One thing you can do in Lightroom if you are working with a clean background ie no coral or other fish is use the adjustment brush and darken the background. This changes the whole picture but it's a different look that sometimes pops the subject. Make sure you have the auto mask box checked and raise the exposure and contrast all the way down and just black out the background.

In photoshop I have used the pen tool and made a selection, inverted it and filled with a color picked from the background, then made it a little opaque to give back some of the natural look. All this after cleaning up the big spots first with the healing brush.

But these methods only work if you have nothing but water around the subject.

Before lightroom adjustment tool:


After using adjustment tool:


Same, before and after: