For underwater photography, while the general audience prefers to see reefscapes bursting with colorful scenes and unfamiliar sea creatures, black and white imagery definitely has its place. Depending on the subject, some underwater images make strong, dramatic black and whites.
Read on and watch the video as GoAskErin’s Erin Quigley converts a so-so shark image into a black and white image with wow-factor in Adobe Lightroom.
GoAskErin’s Erin Quigley is a certified teaching professional for Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, and an award-winning underwater photographer. She has developed specific workflows for the underwater photographer to tackle the most common problems we encounter in our images. Send your question and your problematic underwater image to GoAskErin; she just might use it for her next tutorial!
There are tons of ways to get Black and White images, but to make the picture great, it must have at least some pure black and pure white. Using only Lightroom, I’m able to completely drop out the background while keeping the subject properly exposed. This technique works best with a blue water background and a subject lit with at least a teensy bit of strobe. It’s an amazing transformation.
View Before and After of the Image (click image to enlarge)
Click the tutorial button below to view the full step by step video:
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