For Photographers
How do I color correct underwater photos in post-production?
Color correction is the single most important post-production skill in underwater portrait photography, because water aggressively absorbs warm wavelengths and shifts your raw files toward heavy cyan and blue. Begin your edit in Adobe Lightroom or Capture One by setting custom white balance using a known neutral point in your frame, ideally a gray card you photographed at the start of the shoot.
Boost warm tones gently using the temperature slider, typically pulling toward 6500 to 8500 Kelvin depending on water depth and source light. Use HSL panels to reduce saturation in cyan and blue while increasing saturation in red, orange, and yellow to restore lifelike skin tones. Pay close attention to skin in shadow areas, which often turn green-cyan underwater and require selective hue adjustments.
Move to Photoshop for finer dodging, burning, and selective retouching, especially around eyes, lips, and stray bubbles. Build a custom set of color profiles or starting-point presets tailored to your specific lighting setup, but always treat presets as a starting point rather than a finishing point. Calibrate your monitor regularly because subtle color shifts on an uncalibrated screen will compound into delivery errors that frustrate clients.