How do I duplicate an underwater photo of a color wheel?

M
Posted By
me
Nov 28, 2007
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475
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How do I duplicate an underwater photo of a color wheel?

I want to try to correct underwater photos that I took to reflect the fact that some colors do not show correctly at depth. I took a color wheel to a depth of 50 feet and photographed it using natural light. [ I did not use a flash.] I then took the resulting photo of the color wheel and tried to use Photoshop to alter the color so that it would match the original.
I can’t seem to get the photo of the red sector to look even remotely like the red original. I do not know much about Photoshop, is my approach wrong or did I overestimate the ability of Photoshop to restore the original colors?


Pat

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Z
ZenDiver
Nov 28, 2007
self wrote:
How do I duplicate an underwater photo of a color wheel?

I want to try to correct underwater photos that I took to reflect the fact that some colors do not show correctly at depth. I took a color wheel to a depth of 50 feet and photographed it using natural light. [ I did not use a flash.] I then took the resulting photo of the color wheel and tried to use Photoshop to alter the color so that it would match the original.
I can’t seem to get the photo of the red sector to look even remotely like the red original. I do not know much about Photoshop, is my approach wrong or did I overestimate the ability of Photoshop to restore the original colors?

The problem is that there is an uneven loss of the colour spectrum with the red end fading first and so on until everything is in shades of blue. What you need to do is rebuild the red channel in the photo, this can be a long and complex process. Here is a link to a tutorial from the Digital Diver Network (http://www.digitaldiver.net)
http://www.digitaldiver.net/lib_docs/color_cast.pdf

Depending on which camera you are using there may be other ways for you to improve the colour rendition of your photos. If you can set the white-balance manually or are able to shoot RAW then you are in luck, otherwise filters are your best bet with ambient light.

jon
TK
Toobi-Won Kenobi
Nov 28, 2007
"self" wrote in message
How do I duplicate an underwater photo of a color wheel?

I want to try to correct underwater photos that I took to reflect the fact that some colors do not show correctly at depth. I took a color wheel to a depth of 50 feet and photographed it using natural light. [ I did not use a flash.] I then took the resulting photo of the color wheel and tried to use Photoshop to alter the color so that it would match the original.
I can’t seem to get the photo of the red sector to look even remotely like the red original. I do not know much about Photoshop, is my approach wrong or did I overestimate the ability of Photoshop to restore the original colors?


Pat
This is not unlike the colour casts you see in old photos, caused by chemical reactions to light in the different layers of the emusion. Some success can be achieved by using the levels command, (ctrl +l) adjusting each individual channel in turn, not the master. With the command active and a channel selected, hold down the alt key whilst dragging the right hand triangle (highlight)to the left.When you hold down the alt key, the channel window will take on the colour of the selected channel and when you drag the triangle to the left, you will see a break through (area of black appear) when the highlights come into range in that channel. You can also do the same for the shadows (left hand triangle, drag to the right.).
Whe you have corrected all three channels, check your result in Image>Adjustments>Variations (highly underated for colour correction) and tweak accordingly.

TWK
MK
Martin Kramer
Nov 28, 2007
On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:34:57 +0000, ZenDiver wrote:

self wrote:
How do I duplicate an underwater photo of a color wheel?

I want to try to correct underwater photos that I took to reflect the fact that some colors do not show correctly at depth. I took a color wheel to a depth of 50 feet and photographed it using natural light. [ I did not use a flash.] I then took the resulting photo of the color wheel and tried to use Photoshop to alter the color so that it would match the original.
I can’t seem to get the photo of the red sector to look even remotely like the red original. I do not know much about Photoshop, is my approach wrong or did I overestimate the ability of Photoshop to restore the original colors?

The problem is that there is an uneven loss of the colour spectrum with the red end fading first and so on until everything is in shades of blue. What you need to do is rebuild the red channel in the photo, this can be a long and complex process. Here is a link to a tutorial from the Digital Diver Network (http://www.digitaldiver.net)
http://www.digitaldiver.net/lib_docs/color_cast.pdf

Depending on which camera you are using there may be other ways for you to improve the colour rendition of your photos. If you can set the white-balance manually or are able to shoot RAW then you are in luck, otherwise filters are your best bet with ambient light.

jon

Interesting. I hadn’t considered that the lost reds could be added back in, not having done much underwater photography in the past and nothing more than max snorkeling depths (25-30 ft.). The deeper you go the less time to frame a shot! But then with all the color channels available for tweaking I see how it could be done. Not perfectly but at least salvageable. Not too different than how to make moonlit photos look like more like they were originally taken in moonlight. When properly exposed they look little different than taken in daytime, totally losing the effect you had intended to capture. My fix, desatureate reds, reduce brightness, increase contrast.

While you can’t perfectly recreate what was lost to the water, the spectrum section missing or greatly subdued, I see now that you can at least emulate it somewhat. Now I know how to make those shallow depth reef photos look like I was down at 200′ while snorkeling. Reverse the process. 🙂
Z
ZenDiver
Nov 29, 2007
Martin Kramer wrote:
On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:34:57 +0000, ZenDiver wrote:

self wrote:
How do I duplicate an underwater photo of a color wheel?

I want to try to correct underwater photos that I took to reflect the fact that some colors do not show correctly at depth. I took a color wheel to a depth of 50 feet and photographed it using natural light. [ I did not use a flash.] I then took the resulting photo of the color wheel and tried to use Photoshop to alter the color so that it would match the original.
I can’t seem to get the photo of the red sector to look even remotely like the red original. I do not know much about Photoshop, is my approach wrong or did I overestimate the ability of Photoshop to restore the original colors?
The problem is that there is an uneven loss of the colour spectrum with the red end fading first and so on until everything is in shades of blue. What you need to do is rebuild the red channel in the photo, this can be a long and complex process. Here is a link to a tutorial from the Digital Diver Network (http://www.digitaldiver.net)
http://www.digitaldiver.net/lib_docs/color_cast.pdf

Depending on which camera you are using there may be other ways for you to improve the colour rendition of your photos. If you can set the white-balance manually or are able to shoot RAW then you are in luck, otherwise filters are your best bet with ambient light.

jon

Interesting. I hadn’t considered that the lost reds could be added back in, not having done much underwater photography in the past and nothing more than max snorkeling depths (25-30 ft.). The deeper you go the less time to frame a shot! But then with all the color channels available for tweaking I see how it could be done. Not perfectly but at least salvageable. Not too different than how to make moonlit photos look like more like they were originally taken in moonlight. When properly exposed they look little different than taken in daytime, totally losing the effect you had intended to capture. My fix, desatureate reds, reduce brightness, increase contrast.

While you can’t perfectly recreate what was lost to the water, the spectrum section missing or greatly subdued, I see now that you can at least emulate it somewhat. Now I know how to make those shallow depth reef photos look like I was down at 200′ while snorkeling. Reverse the process. 🙂

Another possibility to try is known as the "Mandrake" technique, not sure why. Here is a link that describes it pretty well http://kayakdiver.com/divephotos/adjustments.htm

jon
S
Sheldon
Nov 30, 2007
"self" wrote in message
How do I duplicate an underwater photo of a color wheel?

I want to try to correct underwater photos that I took to reflect the fact that some colors do not show correctly at depth. I took a color wheel to a depth of 50 feet and photographed it using natural light. [ I did not use a flash.] I then took the resulting photo of the color wheel and tried to use Photoshop to alter the color so that it would match the original.
I can’t seem to get the photo of the red sector to look even remotely like the red original. I do not know much about Photoshop, is my approach wrong or did I overestimate the ability of Photoshop to restore the original colors?


Pat

As you go down you will lose colors in order of the spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet). I asked someone once if I should get yellow fins so they will be easier to see, and was told that the only place you will see them is if you are in trouble and waving them over your head on the surface. As you can see by the spectrum, yellow is one of the first colors to go, and will just turn gray to the diver’s eye.

The only way I know of to correct colors underwater is to use lights or a flash. If you know what the colors are you can always fill them in using a program like Photoshop, but it won’t look as natural as with a flash or lights.

Good luck.

Sheldon

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