without PS

I know it needs colour correction in PS but i like it as is looks underwater lol

To be honest, I'm not a fan of colour-correction. To me, it makes the water seem "muddy" or brownish. I like the pic the way it is too.

I agree with Swankenstein. I think the photo looks much more natural the way it is.

BTW where is that? That looks like some of the areas off SouthEast Florida where I am.

TOM

Define "Color correction"? Is bumping contrast and saturation to make things pop considered color correction? You don't need photoshop for that - the viewer that came with your digital camera has all that. Its what I used for years - until July when I started using Photoshop.


If by "Color Correction" you mean white balance adjustments, exposure, shadows & highlights, removing the blue, and putting in the fishy's real colors, well, I believe all that works best in moderation.

I use that type of voodoo on my dark water wide angle stuff. Which is to say, rarely. On about 80% of my pics, its just de-flock, clean up the noise, contrast, and saturation to get colors to pop. Its rare I even crop anything these days.

I agree - I like the "natural" look, but in my opinion the pic above would benefit from some "color correction" - in as much as the fishies have bright yellow bands on their silver sides - and the photo above is way too monochromatic to appreciate that. The fish are the same color as the background and the water and each other... Bringing out the Yellow so it just POPS would make this pic much more pleasant, and is likely why the shooter took it in the first place... because all that yellow is striking.

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Ken

Also define "natural". If you use a strobe or a flash at all, I would suggest that that is a type of colour correction as well, as that is not how you would normally see something underwater. But by using artificial lighting you are colour correcting what you see for the camera, which is arguably not natural.

Isn't it great that there are so many options and you can do what YOU like? Never try to please the masses (unless, of course, that's who you are shooting for) - always try to please yourself.

If you like the shot, then it's a goodie and a keeper

Keep in mind that post-processing is not "cheating". Post processing is an essential step to get the best from your digital camera. Doesn't mean you have to spend hours or create things that are not there - sometimes post is as simple as a tweak of sharpness or contrast. Cameras are dumb - they don't record what we see.

I like these fish - they have personality.

I tweaked it to MY liking.. no one elses... but i like to use levels and color correction most of the time...

Since my eyes color adapt underwater, I find that the camera doesn't record what I remember seeing.

Doing a quick 'color cast correction' followed by autolevels usually get the photo back much closer to what I remember.

I'll do the above on a duplicate layer, so if the correction looks too artificial, I just dial in the amount of desired correction, from none to full by just running the layer opacity slider back and forth.

Thank you everyone.
I am yet to use a strobe other that for pool work so this was as the camera saw.
It was taken just off majorca north coast in shallow water.
Mattroz that looks far more like my eyes saw it so thank you

Regardless of the colors, the play of light is nice.