From Dull to WOW #6: Final Cleanup: Removing Distractions Without Over-Editing
Final cleanup is the step that turns a good underwater edit into a finished photograph by removing distractions, protecting the subject, cleaning the edges, and keeping the image natural. How to polish an underwater photo in Lightroom without making it look fake If you have been following this From Dull to WOW series, we have already worked through some of the biggest problems underwater photographers face in Lightroom. We have looked at color recovery. We have looked at white balance. We have looked at exposure. We have examined how to restore detail, depth, and dimension in a flat underwater scene. In From Dull to WOW #5 , we focused on rebuilding a flat underwater photo by restoring tonal depth, Presence, color, subject separation, masking, and final adjustments. That post also introduced the idea that even after the image looks much better, there may still be small distractions pulling the viewer’s eye away from the subject. That is where this next step begins. Because sometimes t...
