Robert Herb Photography Blog

A cohesive underwater portfolio blends wide-angle scenes, macro detail, diver storytelling, and consistent color grading into one unified visual identity. 📘  Start here:   The Complete Guide to Editing Underwater Photos in Lightroom 👉 https://robertherb.blogspot.com/2026/03/editing-underwater-photos-lightroom-guide.html Turning Strong Underwater Images into a Cohesive Body of Work Introduction: The Step Most Divers Skip If you have followed this Back-to-Basics series from the beginning, you now know how to: • Organize your catalog • Follow a disciplined workflow • Correct White Balance properly • Control exposure and contrast • Use masking intelligently • Reduce noise • Export correctly • Format for social media Technically, you are capable. But here is what most underwater photographers never address: Editing is not the finish line. Presentation is. You can create beautiful images, but if they are shown randomly or inconsistently, they lose impact. Part 6D is where you st...

Getting Your Underwater Photos Out of Lightroom Without Losing Quality An underwater image may look perfect inside Lightroom, but export settings determine how it appears on social media, in print, and everywhere else. 📘  Start here:   The Complete Guide to Editing Underwater Photos in Lightroom 👉 https://robertherb.blogspot.com/2026/03/editing-underwater-photos-lightroom-guide.html If you’ve been following the Back-to-Basics series up to this point, you’ve spent a lot of time working inside Lightroom. You’ve learned how to build a solid foundation using proper white balance, tone, and color. You understand how clarity, texture, and dehaze can either enhance an image or quietly ruin it. You’ve learned when to stop and how selective masking allows you to refine an underwater photo without making it look artificial. By the end of Part 5G , you should feel confident that you can make an underwater photograph look right inside Lightroom. But this is where many photographers h...

Back to Basics – Part 5G: Putting it all together into a complete Lightroom workflow for underwater photos and video . 📘  Start here:   The Complete Guide to Editing Underwater Photos in Lightroom 👉 https://robertherb.blogspot.com/2026/03/editing-underwater-photos-lightroom-guide.html If you've been following the Back-to-Basics series from the very beginning, you've already achieved something that most underwater photographers haven't fully mastered. You've gained a solid understanding of how Lightroom thinks. So far, we've broken down Lightroom into manageable, easy-to-understand components. We discussed why organization is crucial before diving into editing, how white balance sets the foundation for a good shot, how tone controls help shape the light, and how presence tools can either enhance or compromise detail. We also examined how still photos and videos behave very differently in Lightroom. This final post in Part 5 brings everything together. It's ...

Subtle use of Texture, Clarity, and Dehaze  restores depth and presence in underwater  images without pushing them into an  overprocessed look. 📘  New here:  Start with the full workflow:  The Complete Guide to Editing Underwater Photos in Lightroom 👉 https://robertherb.blogspot.com/2026/03/editing-underwater-photos-lightroom-guide.html There comes a point in every underwater photographer’s editing process when sliders start to feel like magic wands. A slight adjustment can make coral color pop, add depth to wrecks, or make light beams appear almost tangible. But push too far, and the image can quickly fall apart. This is precisely the realm of Part 5D. In this stage of the Lightroom workflow, tools like Texture, Clarity, and Dehaze can be game-changers, transforming an image from good to truly extraordinary. Underwater, these tools are especially potent because water naturally diminishes contrast, detail, and depth. However, wielded without care, they ca...