Robert Herb Photography Blog

The Underwater Edit Clinic #10 uses a barrel sponge reef scene to teach how to recognize when an edit is complete and when further adjustments begin to weaken the photograph. When Another Adjustment Isn't an Improvement Have you ever finished editing an underwater photograph, looked at it for a moment, and then decided to make just one more adjustment?   Perhaps you raised the Shadows a little to reveal more detail in the reef.  Then you increased Clarity to bring out the textures.  Finally, you added a touch of Vibrance to make the colors stand out.   Each adjustment seemed reasonable on its own. But when you compared the latest version with the photograph you thought was finished, something had changed.  The image might have become brighter, more detailed, and more colorful, yet somehow less convincing.   This is an important editing challenge for underwater photographers.  We spend considerable time learning how to improve our images, but we don't a...

The Underwater Edit Clinic #3: When the Subject Looks Right but the Water Doesn’t. Learn when to stop making global adjustments and correct only the part of the photograph that still needs work. Sometimes an underwater edit reaches an awkward point. The White Balance looks reasonable. The exposure is close. The main subject looks believable. But something still feels wrong. In this photograph, the foreground coral is beginning to work. It has color, texture, and enough tonal separation to hold your attention. The water does not. It still looks pale, cyan, and visually weak. This is where many underwater photographers make the next mistake. They keep adjusting the entire photograph. But once part of the photograph is already working, the entire photograph may no longer be the problem. That changes the decision. The question is no longer: What slider should I move next? The better question is: Is the whole photograph still wrong, or is only part of it wrong? That is what we are going to ...

The Underwater Edit Clinic #2: Why Your Underwater Reef Photo Still Looks Flat. Build tonal structure first, then add Presence and color to create depth and separation. A reef photograph can have reasonable White Balance, usable exposure, and plenty of color, yet still feel flat. That is exactly what happened with this photograph. The first instinct might be to reach for more Contrast, Clarity, Dehaze, Saturation, or stronger masks. Those controls can certainly make an underwater photograph look more dramatic. But before deciding what to adjust, I want to ask a better question: What is actually causing the photograph to feel flat? Flatness is a symptom. It is not a Lightroom control. In this edition of The Underwater Edit Clinic , we are going to diagnose the photograph first, determine which stage of the workflow is responsible for the problem, and then make the adjustment that actually belongs there. The goal is not simply to make the reef more dramatic. The goal is to unders...