Photo Rescue Using Photoshop Curves

Sometimes, shooting circumstances are just not ideal.  Case in point, shooting a singing Humpback Whale.  It is not every day that you get to do this.  If you find a singing whale at all, it is likely to be very deep and you will probably be snorkelling, not using SCUBA. There was no option to handoff the camera to free diving champion Tanya Streeter.   Here is the shot and it needs rescue.

The tones are muted because it breaks every rule in the book: 1. far away from the subject, 2. shooting down, 3. not using strobes, but they would be ineffective at that distance anyway.

Here is the multi-step fix.
NOTE: it is helpful to have a good understanding of using the LEVELS command first.  Recommended resource: Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual by Lesa Snider.

















Press Command + M (Mac) / CTRL + M (Win)  in Photoshop (NOTE: Photoshop Elements does not have this tool).  This is the initial Histogram:

Drag the control points to fix the Black Point and White Point at either end.  The result is shown below.

Click OK to "register" this initial correction.  The Photo will look like this and much improved.

Reopen Curves by pressing Command + M (Mac) / CTRL + M (Win).

"Finess" the control line by first adding one control point and SLOWLY experiment by dragging the line up or down and around for the darker tones, on the left until the picture looks better.  Add another control point for the lighter tone on the left and SLOWLY drag up and down and around.  The result is the S-Curve shown.

In the photo at this point, the Suns rays are more visible and the contrast is better, and you can better see the clumps of coral on the bottom over 150 feet away and the white tail flukes are closer to the true white tint.   Click OK to register the changes.

Now for the final touch, reopen Curves.  This time, Click on the Channels dropdown box and select blue since the predominant color is blue.

The BLUE channel shows severe deficiency in the shadows and darker tones.  So slide the black point to the right until the photo is improved. 

This shows Histogram after correction.   Click OK and save your work.  At this point you could work on the RED and GREEN Channels but they are inconsequential in this particular photo as those parts of the spectrum are naturally filtered out by the depth of the water.

The final rescued photo of the singing fifty-five foot whale.  Worth the work!

Catch us at the BENEATH THE SEA conference at the Meadowlands Expo Center.  We are presenting the seminar on the Humpback Whales of the Silver Banks on March 26th at 2pm.

Click here to see more of my underwater favorites.
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