obvious question?

[H2Andy]

here are some shots from my dive off Key Largo this weekend.

due to the huge amount of backscatter (the reef was
whipped up by 20+ knot winds), i couldn't use my flash
at all, so the pics are very faded.

other than getting closer, using a flash (if possible), and ultimately
upgrading to a strobe on an arm, is there a way to make the color come out better on these pics?

http://scubaboard.com/showpost.php?p=590606&postcount=78

as always, thanks in advance!

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Depends what you have for software. You can usually do a lot by layering the image and adjusting the color balance. Do a search and you should be able to come up with some previous posts on techniques for this.

 

[Gilligan]

Are you using "Manual White Balance" on your non-strobe shots? I have had the best results with it for non-strobe shots. Most of the time all I do to those shots in Photoshop is "Auto Levels" and some Sharpness adjustment.

I took one of your photos into Photoshop and did the following:
1. used "Auto levels"
2. used the Mandrake process.
3. selected from a choice of variations, one of which automatically put more green in the photo.
4. dropped the brightness down quite a bit.
5. adjusted the sharpness.

ps: I'm no expert on Photoshop.

 

[Dee]

Here's the angelfish run through PS Elements really fast.

Auto levels
Bump the brightness down and the contrast up
Unsharp mask

sorry for the resolution!

 

[H2Andy]

thank you all, nice results there!

i know that the best use for my setup is macro stuff, but sometimes i just get
ambitious!

 

[lukeROB]

thank you all, nice results there!

i know that the best use for my setup is macro stuff, but sometimes i just get
ambitious!

These photos still have a little red in them. They can be easily fixed at the cost of a bit of extra grain. If you dont want these to be huge prints this grain will be barely noticable. I did the anglefish in 2 minutes (could be a little better), let me know what you think.

 

[lukeROB]

Did the yellowtail too, just to show how easy it is. This took a minute and has no extra sharpening. I had to shrink it and compress it a little more than the original so I could attach it.

 

[H2Andy]

very nice!

how did you fix the "extra red"? (i am a newbie, remember)

 

[lukeROB]

very nice!

how did you fix the "extra red"? (i am a newbie, remember)

I'm giving away all my secrets
Have you got PS - This is exactly what I did to both.

Channel Mixer Layer - In red channel take out both some green and blue (I took about +25% from each here). That is why I say quick because I didn't bother getting it perfect. Look at the picture and see what it needs you have to think about the colour spectrum, I'm not to great at it but taking away blue adds yellow, taking green adds magenta, etc. Just fiddle with channnel mixer to see what things do.

Curves Layer - For a newbie auto normally will do the trick. I change the brightness contrast here too but you could add another layer if it is easier. I usually do an auto curves, it will not be perfect so I go to each channel (rgb) and change them slightly. Again practice makes it intuative if you are boosting colour, contrast, brightness or whatever.

This is not a great guide. Kind of hard to explain I guess. Although it sounds complex its actually really easy in practice. I'm not really good at PS at all, just sort of taught myself the few things I use for UW. If you dont understand anything I said, and have PS - email me and I'll explain it better and try give you some screen shots to show you exactly what I mean.

 

[H2Andy]

excellent, thank you...

i guess first step will be to get Photoshop...