The Underwater Edit Clinic #1: Why Your Underwater Photo Is Still Blue After White Balance
The Underwater Edit Clinic #1 explores why an underwater photograph can still contain strong blue water even after White Balance is correct. You adjusted White Balance. The reef looks warmer. The colors are starting to return. The photograph is clearly better. But the water is still blue. So what should you do? For many underwater photographers, the instinct is immediate: keep warming the White Balance until the blue disappears. That is exactly where a good correction can turn into a bad edit. Welcome to The Underwater Edit Clinic , a new series built around real photographs, real editing problems, and the decisions that determine whether an adjustment actually improves the image. In my previous series, The Consistent Underwater Edit , we worked through the editing sequence I use: White Balance → Exposure → Presence → Color → Masking → Final Adjustments Now we are going to apply that system to real photographs, where the answer is not always obvious. The question is no longer simply: W...