Essential Lightroom Tools for Enhancing Blue Water Photography (2025 Edition)
Blue water often serves as the stunning backdrop for many of our underwater photographs. Whether you're capturing sweeping reefscapes, schools of fish swimming mid-water, or a lone diver set against a beautiful gradient of cobalt, this backdrop plays a crucial role in conveying the breathtaking beauty of the underwater world. However, achieving that vibrant, lively blue in post-processing can be challenging. Without careful editing, your blue water might appear flat, dull, or lifeless, which diminishes the overall impact of your images and fails to convey the magic and vitality you experienced during your dive.
Over the past year, I've delved into how modern tools, particularly AI-powered masking techniques, can significantly enhance blue water photography. These advances have made it easier than ever to isolate the water from other elements in your shot, allowing for precise adjustments that bring out the actual color and depth, while preserving the integrity of your main subjects.
Since then, Adobe has enhanced Lightroom's features, providing photographers with powerful new tools to refine their images. Now, you can separate, improve, and fine-tune the water in your photographs more effortlessly, all without disturbing your main subjects or the overall composition. In this updated 2025 edition, we'll explore three incredible tools: Select Water AI Mask, Point Color, and AI Lens Blur, and see how they work together to produce stunning results, especially in challenging conditions like ambient light dives or wide-angle reef shots. These tools open up new possibilities for underwater photographers, helping you to truly capture and convey the magic of your underwater adventures.
1️ Select Water AI Mask - Your
Blue Water Isolate-and-Enhance Tool
Why It's Truly Game-Changing: The latest updates in Adobe's photography software make a real splash! Introduced in Lightroom Classic version 14.4, the Select Water mask has been a helpful tool for photographers aiming to enhance their water scenes. Now, with even more precision in Lightroom Classic version 14.5 and Lightroom (Cloud) version 8.5, this feature can automatically detect open water regions in your images. What's particularly impressive is its ability to accurately identify water areas even when other objects like fish, coral, or divers overlap the water surface. This advancement saves photographers a significant amount of manual masking and editing time, making post-processing much smoother and more efficient. Whether you're capturing underwater scenes or water surfaces from above, this tool helps ensure your edits are more precise, natural, and professional-looking. It's a fantastic example of how Adobe continues to innovate, providing powerful, easy-to-use features for photographers who want to focus more on their creativity and less on tedious corrections.
Workflow for Wide-Angle Reefscapes:
- Shortcut:
Press Shift + W to open the Masking panel.
- Choose
Select Water. Lightroom will isolate the water column, excluding
most foreground elements.
- Adjust:
- Temp/Tint:
Slightly cool the Temp slider (-5 to -15) to restore natural blue.
- Clarity:
Increase by +5 to +15 for subtle structure in gradients.
- Dehaze:
Apply +3 to +8 for removing ambient haze without crushing shadows.
Pro Tip: After your primary water adjustment,
duplicate the mask, invert it, and selectively enhance coral or fish—this keeps
subjects vibrant while maintaining a natural background.
2️ Point Color – Targeting the
Right Hue in the Blue Spectrum
Why It's Essential:
Blue water isn't simply a uniform shade of blue. Instead, its color can vary widely depending on several factors, such as depth, the angle of sunlight, and the amount of sediment present. These elements can cause the water to appear more cyan or even turquoise, offering a beautiful spectrum of shades.
To help photographers and editors work more precisely with these variations, the Point Color tool (introduced in Lightroom Classic 14.4 and improved in 14.5) is handy. This advanced feature allows you to target specific hues at the pixel level, giving you far more control than the broader adjustments offered by traditional HSL sliders. With Point Color, you can fine-tune particular areas of your image, making your edits more accurate and natural-looking. Understanding and utilizing this tool can significantly enhance your ability to accurately represent water in your photos, bringing out the subtle nuances that make your images stand out.
Workflow for Ambient Light Dives:
- Open
the Color Panel and select Point Color.
- Use
the Eyedropper Tool to click directly on a mid-water area you want
to refine.
- Narrow
the Range sliders to avoid affecting other elements.
- Adjust
Hue slightly to correct unwanted shifts, pulling cyan toward a
richer blue, for example.
- Boost Saturation
(+5 to +12) only if the water looks washed out.
Pro Tip: This is especially effective for balancing
the blue of open water with the warmer tones of sunlit reef tops, ensuring
neither looks unnatural.
3 AI Lens Blur – Depth
Simulation for Blue Water Drama
Why It Matters for Composition:
Underwater photography has always posed unique challenges when it comes to capturing stunning images. One common issue is the "flat" look, which occurs because water absorbs and scatters light in ways that can diminish depth perception, making your photos appear less three-dimensional. To overcome this, recent advancements in AI technology have been incredibly beneficial. For example, AI Lens Blur, introduced in early 2025, works seamlessly with Select Water masks. This innovative feature allows you to simulate depth-of-field effects, much like what you see in traditional photography, helping to create a sense of depth and focus in your underwater images. By selectively blurring certain areas, you can guide viewers' eyes directly to your main subject, making your photos more engaging and visually appealing. Understanding and utilizing these tools can greatly enhance your underwater compositions, giving your images that professional, polished look that truly stands out.
Workflow for Schooling Fish in Blue Water:
- Apply
a Select Subject mask for your school of fish.
- Create
a Select Water mask and intersect it with the Background.
- Add Lens
Blur and adjust:
- Amount:
15-25 for gentle depth separation.
- Focus
Range: Keep the subject sharp while softly fading distant water.
- Fine-tune
Grain to match your camera's natural texture to avoid an artificial look.
Pro Tip: This technique is powerful for making
mid-water subjects stand out without over-saturating the background.
How These Tools Work Together
For a wide-angle reef scene on an ambient-light dive:
- Select
Water AI Mask to define your background.
- Apply Point
Color to bring out the purest blue possible.
- Use AI Lens Blur to subtly separate the subject from the water, increasing depth perception.
- Final
step: add a Tone Curve tweak (gentle S-curve) for overall punch.
File Format Compatibility
All three tools, Select Water, Point Color, and
AI Lens Blur, are supported in:
- RAW
(DNG, CR3, NEF, ARW, etc.) - Best results with maximum color and tonal
data.
- JPEG - Fully functional but with reduced flexibility.
- TIFF/PSD - Supported for Photoshop round-trips.
- HEIC/HEIF - Supported in current Lightroom versions.
For best results, especially when working with subtle blue
gradients, start with RAW files to preserve dynamic range and avoid
banding in water backgrounds.
Final Thoughts
The challenge of blue water photography is that the water itself often serves as both the main subject and the background, which can make capturing the scene quite tricky. Fortunately, with the right tools and techniques, you can significantly enhance your images to truly reflect the beauty and clarity of your dive experience. By combining features such as Select Water AI Mask, Point Color, and AI Lens Blur within your editing process, you can restore depth, sharpness, and vibrancy to your photos. These tools help recreate the dynamic and vivid underwater environment, without making your subjects look artificially cut out or over-processed.
In photography editing, especially in programs like Lightroom, subtlety is key. The goal is to enhance the natural character of the water and scene, rather than overpower it with heavy effects. When used thoughtfully, these tools work together harmoniously, each refining different aspects: from color accuracy and detail to background blur. This coordinated approach provides a more realistic and captivating final image.
If you've ever been disappointed with images where murky or flat water detracts from the overall impact, particularly in wide-angle reef shots or ambient-light conditions, don't worry. The latest updates in Lightroom Classic 14.5, Lightroom Mobile 9.5, and Lightroom (Cloud) 8.5 introduce improved workflows explicitly designed to tackle these challenges. These enhancements could be the missing piece that transforms your photos from simple "nice dive shots" to stunning, print-worthy masterpieces. They help highlight the vibrant underwater world you experienced, revealing details and colors that may have been hidden or dulled initially.
So, whether you're a professional underwater photographer or a passionate hobbyist, exploring and utilizing these advanced editing tools can significantly elevate your underwater images. Remember, the goal is to preserve the natural beauty of your dive photos while subtly enhancing their clarity and vibrancy, making your underwater adventures truly come to life through your photos.
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strategies at: info.robertherb.com/lm-2-blog
📷
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Until next time, dive smart, shoot sharp, and edit with
intention.
— Bob Herb
📷 info.robertherb.com/lm-2-blog
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🧭 What's Next?
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Written by Robert Herb – Empowering underwater photographers to capture and enhance the beauty of our oceans since 1978
Stay tuned for more in-depth insights into underwater photography. Let's dive deeper into the art and craft of capturing the marine world! If you have any comments or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
Get ready for an exciting underwater photography adventure! For more details on my upcoming online training course, check out my "Training" page at RobertHerb.com or email me at bob@robertherb.com.
Sincerely,
Bob Herb
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