I'm not selling myself short, I just know that the method has certain limitations and most of the people who use it aren't aware of them, don't know how to work around them, or don't care because they want a 3-click solution. I'm actually quite flattered that the method has been tried by so many people, and it does work extremely nicely for a small subset of photos. But I can usually spot a mandraked photo a mile away (having created so many myself), and they're not always pleasant to look at.
Some people don't believe in editing because of some idiotic notion that they're 'Photographers' (with a capital P) and that the image creation process stops when they click the shutter, something no professional in the history of photography has ever believed. I'm obviously not one of these people, nor clearly are a number of people in this discussion. Some of us, in fact, spend far more time editing than taking pictures, and get quite a kick out of it. If the mandrake method is an entry-point for such people, then great, but you've also got to understand its shortcomings. So let me give you my philosophy. Take from it whatever you find to be of use.
When you take an ambient light photo underwater, either on purpose or by accident, you'll end up with a photo that is extremely deficient in the red channel, and well defined in the green and blue channels if well-exposed. This MAY reflect the reality of what the scene really looked like, but more likely it doesn't because the camera's white balancing algorithms freaked out and gave you some bizarre color cast when it found out you had no red. There is no decent white-balance setting to prepare your camera to take a picture underwater without it doing something strange, so you have the following options.
1) Take a JPG or TIFF shot anyway and try to overcome the camera's stupid attempt to white-balance in PhotoShop or whatever. This is the usual situation in which the mandrake method has been used. Sometimes it even works.
2) Use external illumination (strobes) -- perfect for some situations, not ideal for others.
3) Take a RAW photo and set your own white balance in the RAW converter. This is the best solution for ambient light shots, doesn't necessarily have to be expensive, but is very time-consuming and eats up a lot of storage space. (I shoot only in RAW anymore.)
4) Manually white-balance your camera with a dive slate. I've seen some fabulous results from this, and others not so hot. The problem is that you're telling your camera that the slate is white, when underwater it really isn't white. Your camera compensates by adding in a lot of red, which can make your water look purplish. This is a good solution for people who don't like editing and decide to make their camera do it for them. Some people combine this with red or magenta filters and it can really work great.
In my opinion anyone who's really serious about photography will shoot RAW and use at least 1 strobe, preferably 2. Not everyone can or wants to do this, and sometimes the strobes don't fire the way you want or your camera settings are wrong and you end up with a jpg or tif that you need to edit yourself. What do you do?
Well that's another long post. Maybe tomorrow.
Some people don't believe in editing because of some idiotic notion that they're 'Photographers' (with a capital P) and that the image creation process stops when they click the shutter, something no professional in the history of photography has ever believed. I'm obviously not one of these people, nor clearly are a number of people in this discussion. Some of us, in fact, spend far more time editing than taking pictures, and get quite a kick out of it. If the mandrake method is an entry-point for such people, then great, but you've also got to understand its shortcomings. So let me give you my philosophy. Take from it whatever you find to be of use.
When you take an ambient light photo underwater, either on purpose or by accident, you'll end up with a photo that is extremely deficient in the red channel, and well defined in the green and blue channels if well-exposed. This MAY reflect the reality of what the scene really looked like, but more likely it doesn't because the camera's white balancing algorithms freaked out and gave you some bizarre color cast when it found out you had no red. There is no decent white-balance setting to prepare your camera to take a picture underwater without it doing something strange, so you have the following options.
1) Take a JPG or TIFF shot anyway and try to overcome the camera's stupid attempt to white-balance in PhotoShop or whatever. This is the usual situation in which the mandrake method has been used. Sometimes it even works.
2) Use external illumination (strobes) -- perfect for some situations, not ideal for others.
3) Take a RAW photo and set your own white balance in the RAW converter. This is the best solution for ambient light shots, doesn't necessarily have to be expensive, but is very time-consuming and eats up a lot of storage space. (I shoot only in RAW anymore.)
4) Manually white-balance your camera with a dive slate. I've seen some fabulous results from this, and others not so hot. The problem is that you're telling your camera that the slate is white, when underwater it really isn't white. Your camera compensates by adding in a lot of red, which can make your water look purplish. This is a good solution for people who don't like editing and decide to make their camera do it for them. Some people combine this with red or magenta filters and it can really work great.
In my opinion anyone who's really serious about photography will shoot RAW and use at least 1 strobe, preferably 2. Not everyone can or wants to do this, and sometimes the strobes don't fire the way you want or your camera settings are wrong and you end up with a jpg or tif that you need to edit yourself. What do you do?
Well that's another long post. Maybe tomorrow.
The problem is it's already referred to a number of different things, none of which I do anymore. 
