The post processing of an underwater photo: second part
The post processing of an underwater photo: second part
Clarity
The clarity is the first tool to be seen in the basic setting category .
It’s function is to bring out or lower the amount of details and micro-contrasts of your overall image.
This is very important if you want to bring out some texture, such as sand, or tortoiseshells. It also emphasises the border of some components of your image.
This tool boosts the dynamism and the reliefs of your image . On the oposite , it can blur some of your details when you use negative clarity , something I never do .
Clarity : A tool to be used with moderation
At the beginning I was using a lot of clarity , especially to add a bit more juice to my photos.
But , as time goes by , experience taught me that this seductive tool has to be used with extreme cautiousness.
Now , I almost never use it anymore , actually , sometimes I do , on very precise spots of an image .
If you add too much , it really denaturates your image , and removes that “soft” feel and gives it a metallic effect .
But , I believe than an image speaks a thousand words so :
For this treatment , I didn’t add any clarity , I find the image to be dynamic enough , with a relief shown thanks to the contrast management shown earlier.
Lens corrections
Lightroom has a functionality called ” Lens detection “.
You can employ it to remove any chromatic aberrations or any unwanted vignetting.
Chromatic aberrations are always to be removed.
We can notice on this screenshot that the software noticed several settings : The camera’s brand
The lens being used
The Focal Lenght
Lightroom offers you a lot of corrections according to the lens and focal lenght you used to take the picture.
These corrections are given by the lense’s manufacturer in order to fix some optical flaws.
Here you have 2 screenshots , one before the lens correction and one after :
You can notice the difference of rendering regarding the borders of the image.
In fact , the vigneting correction brightens the surroundings of the image, which are by default, darkened by the lens.
According to me, this correction isn’t to be done all the time.
It has to be done after having a case study of the image and it’s composition.
I almost always add some vigntting to my images in order to lead the eye to the subject . This is not a correction I often do.
You must know that vignetting depends a lot on the quality of your lens
The better the quality , the lower the vignetting will be seen , or , in the worst case scenario , it will be spread more evenly .
For this image , I will leave a bit of vignetting on the lens . Therefore , I will only apply the correction up to 30%.
Why so ?
I do so because the dark corners lead the viewer’s eye towards the center of the picture, where the subject actually is.
On the other hand I always use the distortion correction.
The colors
Here is another big chapter of the informatic threatment.
The color interpretation is subjective.
On top of that, your camera’s screen isn’t the absolute truth.
The colors are often messed up by the water collumn
the delicacy of the color processing evolves according to your experiences
Just like great wine or cheese, it gets better with time !
Just like great wine or cheese, it gets better with time !
The most commun error I see is the « too much » one where you oversaturate your images.
Trust me, we get there pretty quickly.
The color harmony is also very important : Be careful with the dominant colors linked to a bad lighting or a bad white balance .
There are a ton of tools available to process your image’s colors
The color temperature and tint tools
The management of each color in an isolated maner from the HSL / Color / BW
The split toning which influences your choice in high, middle and low tones
The tool that allows you to change your primer colors, that can be found in the calibration tab of your camera.
To start with, we will use the tool that controls temperatures and tints it can be found in the basic settings menu :
The tool that allows you to change your primer colors, that can be found in the calibration tab of your camera.
Here, the temperature is 5850 Kelvin
This setting will be set according to your camera’s one.
During this dive I let my camera automatically deal with the colors, but sometimes, I will choose to overide it.
By modifying the slider,you can adjust the colors to give them a warmer or colder feel.
Here are too exagerated examples of possible renderings with this tool :
Below, a temperature of 7500 Kelvins.
Voici deux exemples exagérés des rendus possibles avec cet outil :
Ci-joint, une température de couleur à 7000 degrés Kelvin.
We immediatly notice that all the colors are warmer, they go towards the yellows.
Below, a color temperature of 4700 Kelvin.
On the contrary, they now tend to go towards colder tones, so, towards blue tones.
Result
Temperature influencers the entire colorimetric space of the photograph.
Take into account the fact that the rendering can greatly differ according to the screen you are using if it has not been calibrated.
Usually, subaquatic images have a better rendering when the temperature is set between 4800K and 5500K
For this image, I will leave the temperature as it is, at 5850K I find it to be nicely balanced
For the tint slider, it’s exactly the same process as for the temperature, at the single difference that the colorimetric spectrum will drive more toward the greens or the magentas.
Just like temperature, I won’t modify it’s value
Still in this basic setting tab, we have two sliders, to accentuate the colors, these are the last two ones
Vibrance and Saturation
What’s the core difference between vibrance and saturation ?
The saturation of a color in colorimetry is, in a way, the intensity of the tint
A very saturation color tends to be very fluorescent
A less saturated color will go to more “pastel” tones
Vibrance, a notion popularised by Adobe, is much harder to define !
Here are their Definition :
The vibrance setting allows you to set the saturation in order to minimize clipping of the colors close to the maximum level of saturation. This setting raises the level of saturation of the low saturated colors so that it’s higher than the one from which the colors are already saturated. It also allows to prevent any excessive saturation of the skin
Conclusion on the difference between these two notions :
Saturation raises the intensity of tints from all colors
Vibrance selects the least pronounced colors (the middle tones) to intensify their tint without impacting the already dominating colors.
In underwater photography, vibrance is a huge asset to raise the subject’s colors without modifying the dominant tints (blue in most cases)
Be careful not to overplay with the sliders !
For example, here is the vibration set to 50% :
Pour exemple, voici la vibrance poussée à 50% :
And now that the saturation is set to 50% :
We can notice that the saturation, when set to 50% gives a very unatural result, whereas when the vibrance is at 50%, it’s not too bad.
Of course, I exagerated on both sliders on purpose, just to showcase the difference.
In general, I never go above 20% in Vibrance and 10% in Saturation
These are the maximum values I allowed myself during the past few years . Beyong those numbers, the result doesn’t look natural anymore.
Here is the rendering at 20% of vibrance and 10% of saturation:
HSL/Color/BW Tool
To modify a specific color without touching any other, we will use the tools that can be found in the HSL/Color/BW tab.
There are many presentations of this tool, according to whether you click on color or HSl.
In real terms, it’s quite similar.
It’s possible to modify 8 distincts colors :
It’s possible to influence 3 notions for each and every given colors, that allows precise adjustments for each colors without impacting the others.
the tint
the Saturation
the luminence
For our example, I think that the blues are too greeny, which is disturbing me quite a bit.
I am gonna modifty their tint by pushing the Cyan slider ( blue/green ) to the right :
Précision : The cyan tints influence a lot the rendering of the blues in a picture, it’s the color to be worked first
I won’t be playing on the color’s saturation with this tool
In fact, the saturation has already been adjusted earlier.
But, nothing is preventing us from rising or lowering a color’s saturation if it doesn’t look good or is too different from other colors.
We get a blue that’s not going towards the greens anymore. It’s your choice to try to determinate the colors that fits best.
Split Toning
It’s another method that aims at adjusting the colors in the highlights and/or the shadows.
In this case, we can’t select a precise color.
It’s the entire colorimetric spectrum, from the highlights or the shadows that’s being modified.
Eventhought I sometimes use this tool for landscape pictures, I never do so for underwater photographs.
There is a third method that allows you to adjust the colors, we will go in a tab you are already familiar with :
The post processing of an underwater photo: second part
The post processing of an underwater photo: second part
Clarity
The clarity is the first tool to be seen in the basic setting category .
It’s function is to bring out or lower the amount of details and micro-contrasts of your overall image.
This is very important if you want to bring out some texture, such as sand, or tortoiseshells. It also emphasises the border of some components of your image.
Clarity : A tool to be used with moderation
At the beginning I was using a lot of clarity , especially to add a bit more juice to my photos.
But , as time goes by , experience taught me that this seductive tool has to be used with extreme cautiousness.
Now , I almost never use it anymore , actually , sometimes I do , on very precise spots of an image .
If you add too much , it really denaturates your image , and removes that “soft” feel and gives it a metallic effect .
But , I believe than an image speaks a thousand words so :
For this treatment , I didn’t add any clarity , I find the image to be dynamic enough , with a relief shown thanks to the contrast management shown earlier.
Lens corrections
Lightroom has a functionality called ” Lens detection “.
You can employ it to remove any chromatic aberrations or any unwanted vignetting.
We can notice on this screenshot that the software noticed several settings : The camera’s brand
The lens being used
The Focal Lenght
Lightroom offers you a lot of corrections according to the lens and focal lenght you used to take the picture.
These corrections are given by the lense’s manufacturer in order to fix some optical flaws.
Here you have 2 screenshots , one before the lens correction and one after :
You can notice the difference of rendering regarding the borders of the image.
In fact , the vigneting correction brightens the surroundings of the image, which are by default, darkened by the lens.
According to me, this correction isn’t to be done all the time.
It has to be done after having a case study of the image and it’s composition.
You must know that vignetting depends a lot on the quality of your lens
The better the quality , the lower the vignetting will be seen , or , in the worst case scenario , it will be spread more evenly .
For this image , I will leave a bit of vignetting on the lens . Therefore , I will only apply the correction up to 30%.
Why so ?
I do so because the dark corners lead the viewer’s eye towards the center of the picture, where the subject actually is.
On the other hand I always use the distortion correction.
The colors
Here is another big chapter of the informatic threatment.
The color interpretation is subjective.
On top of that, your camera’s screen isn’t the absolute truth.
It’s even more true in underwater photography where :
The colors are often messed up by the water collumn
the delicacy of the color processing evolves according to your experiences
Just like great wine or cheese, it gets better with time !
Just like great wine or cheese, it gets better with time !
The most commun error I see is the « too much » one where you oversaturate your images.
The color harmony is also very important : Be careful with the dominant colors linked to a bad lighting or a bad white balance .
There are a ton of tools available to process your image’s colors
The color temperature and tint tools
The management of each color in an isolated maner from the HSL / Color / BW
The split toning which influences your choice in high, middle and low tones
The tool that allows you to change your primer colors, that can be found in the calibration tab of your camera.
To start with, we will use the tool that controls temperatures and tints it can be found in the basic settings menu :
The tool that allows you to change your primer colors, that can be found in the calibration tab of your camera.
Here, the temperature is 5850 Kelvin
This setting will be set according to your camera’s one.
During this dive I let my camera automatically deal with the colors, but sometimes, I will choose to overide it.
By modifying the slider,you can adjust the colors to give them a warmer or colder feel.
Here are too exagerated examples of possible renderings with this tool :
Below, a temperature of 7500 Kelvins.
Voici deux exemples exagérés des rendus possibles avec cet outil :
Ci-joint, une température de couleur à 7000 degrés Kelvin.
We immediatly notice that all the colors are warmer, they go towards the yellows.
Below, a color temperature of 4700 Kelvin.
On the contrary, they now tend to go towards colder tones, so, towards blue tones.
Result
Temperature influencers the entire colorimetric space of the photograph.
Take into account the fact that the rendering can greatly differ according to the screen you are using if it has not been calibrated.
For this image, I will leave the temperature as it is, at 5850K I find it to be nicely balanced
For the tint slider, it’s exactly the same process as for the temperature, at the single difference that the colorimetric spectrum will drive more toward the greens or the magentas.
Just like temperature, I won’t modify it’s value
Still in this basic setting tab, we have two sliders, to accentuate the colors, these are the last two ones
Vibrance and Saturation
What’s the core difference between vibrance and saturation ?
The saturation of a color in colorimetry is, in a way, the intensity of the tint
A very saturation color tends to be very fluorescent
A less saturated color will go to more “pastel” tones
Vibrance, a notion popularised by Adobe, is much harder to define !
Here are their Definition :
Conclusion on the difference between these two notions :
Saturation raises the intensity of tints from all colors
Vibrance selects the least pronounced colors (the middle tones) to intensify their tint without impacting the already dominating colors.
In underwater photography, vibrance is a huge asset to raise the subject’s colors without modifying the dominant tints (blue in most cases)
Be careful not to overplay with the sliders !
For example, here is the vibration set to 50% :
Pour exemple, voici la vibrance poussée à 50% :
And now that the saturation is set to 50% :
We can notice that the saturation, when set to 50% gives a very unatural result, whereas when the vibrance is at 50%, it’s not too bad.
Of course, I exagerated on both sliders on purpose, just to showcase the difference.
In general, I never go above 20% in Vibrance and 10% in Saturation
These are the maximum values I allowed myself during the past few years . Beyong those numbers, the result doesn’t look natural anymore.
Here is the rendering at 20% of vibrance and 10% of saturation:
HSL/Color/BW Tool
To modify a specific color without touching any other, we will use the tools that can be found in the HSL/Color/BW tab.
There are many presentations of this tool, according to whether you click on color or HSl.
In real terms, it’s quite similar.
It’s possible to modify 8 distincts colors :
It’s possible to influence 3 notions for each and every given colors, that allows precise adjustments for each colors without impacting the others.
the tint
the Saturation
the luminence
For our example, I think that the blues are too greeny, which is disturbing me quite a bit.
I am gonna modifty their tint by pushing the Cyan slider ( blue/green ) to the right :
I won’t be playing on the color’s saturation with this tool
In fact, the saturation has already been adjusted earlier.
But, nothing is preventing us from rising or lowering a color’s saturation if it doesn’t look good or is too different from other colors.
We get a blue that’s not going towards the greens anymore. It’s your choice to try to determinate the colors that fits best.
Split Toning
It’s another method that aims at adjusting the colors in the highlights and/or the shadows.
In this case, we can’t select a precise color.
It’s the entire colorimetric spectrum, from the highlights or the shadows that’s being modified.
Eventhought I sometimes use this tool for landscape pictures, I never do so for underwater photographs.
There is a third method that allows you to adjust the colors, we will go in a tab you are already familiar with :