Get Rid of the Blue in your Scuba Photos

Are you sick and tired of your photos coming out Blue? You may be new to underwater photography so you should no one simple trick. What is it? White Balance!
You need to make sure you white balance underwater at depth. Think of you camera as if the lens is the eye and the complex system in it is a brain. When humans dive underwater the color spectrum is altered and this is the case for your camera.

Adjusting your whit balance underwater tells your camera that what is white underwater. You need to make sure you have a white card with you during your dive. Adjust your white balance for the depth you are photographing at, make sure that if your depth changes by more than 10ft/3m you need white balance again. Note if you are using a strobe then shoot the white balance card at full power. Your strobe or flash emits light at a certain color temp, usually 5500K, similar to sunlight, but it depends on the strobe. Most strobes are between 4800K and 5600K. The color temp of the light will change as it passes through water, and reds are filtered out. Remember to switch your white-balance back to auto when using the flash, otherwise your photo will look very red.

If you are lighting up a close subject with your strobe or internal flash, your color temp should be set to Auto. If you are not happy with the color you are getting, which may happen in low-end compact cameras, you can try setting it to sunny or flash, which are both around 5500K. Setting the white balance to cloudy (6000-6500K) when using strobes will usually result in photos that are a little too orange, unless the subject is a few feet away.

White Balance Mistakes:

• Any white balance mistakes can be easily corrected if you are shooting in RAW
• Setting a manual white balance, and then forgetting to switch to auto white-balance and using your flash or strobes will result in a nice red photo, oops!
• Taking an ambient light shot underwater , and leaving the white balance on auto, sunny, or flash will result in a mostly blue photo void of color, especially if you are deeper than 10-15ft deep.
• Make sure you increase the contrast of your ambient-light photo afterwards in photoshop.