The Underwater Lounge

In Photoshop “actions” are used to automate repetitive tasks. Photographers create actions to resize images, sharpen files, and to enhance photos. In underwater photography, the editing process can be more challenging than ever, yet many shooters find themselves running the same series of edits on their images to polish them up. When you find yourself repeating the same steps over and over again while optimising photos, create an action to cut down on post processing and save yourself time. Here’s one that helps you improve your underwater scenics.

Most wide angle shots contain blue water and a prominent subject in the frame. Adding some contrast, enhancing the water column, and rebalancing the colors of the main subjects are three things that help improve and strengthen the overall impact of the shot. Rather than manually adding the adjustment layers to prepare the image for enhancement, why turn this process into a single action instead and let Photoshop do the work for you. Here’s how to do it!

If the Actions panel is not showing in your current workspace, select Window > Actions. Every action you create needs to be stored in an action set. To stay organised, create one now. Click on the Create New Set folder icon at the bottom of the Actions panel, give it a name, and press OK. While assigning a Function key shortcut to run the action is possible, one was not used for the example. Here I’ve created an action set that will house all my wide angle enhancements.

Now let’s build the action. To do so click the Create New Action icon in the Actions panel.  In the dialog name it something that relates to the action it will perform. This one is called “Underwater Wide Angle Adjustments.” Make sure to store the action in your new set and press Record. With the red light on, Photoshop keeps track of all the commands you choose, and keeps recording until the Stop button is pressed, so be careful what you do. Now that you’re “live,” it’s time to build the action.

First you’ll create a layer where you can add midtone contrast to the image. To do that, go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves. In the dialog, name the layer after the adjustment it will perform to stay organized. Here, it’s called “Midtone Contrast.” Next, change the Mode to Luminosity. This way any tonal corrections you apply affect just the brightness values of the photo, and do not impact the color. Then press OK. This completes the first step of the action and places a Curves adjustment in the Layers panel.

The second step in the action will help improve the blue water. Go back to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue / Saturation. This time name the layer “Blue Water” then press OK.

The last adjustment uses the Selective Color command to balance out the colors in the image, and helps remove any color cast that may be present. This time we’ll use the keyboard shortcut to make an adjustment layer. Hold down the Alt/Option key, then press the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the layers panel and choose Selective Color. Again, name the file something relevant then change the Mode of the layer to Color. This way just the colour in the image is affected, and the brightness or luminosity values are left untouched. Then press OK to create the layer.

Finally, target the Curves adjustment you made for midtone contrast in the Layers panel. This completes the action, and makes that adjustment the first one targeted for enhancement when the action is run on a photo. This last step isn’t necessary but serves as a friendly reminder that tonal corrections should be made before color corrections during the workflow process; this is good practice to follow.

A quick look at the Layers panel shows the three adjustment layers. They are named, have the proper blend modes set, and as just mentioned, the Curves command is highlighted, ready to carry out the first edit. In the Actions panel to the left, the complete action is laid out and stored in the Underwater Enhancement set. The Color Balance adjustment has been twirled open to show what Photoshop does in the background, naming the layer and changing the blend mode. With the action complete, it is time to hit the Stop button.

Now that the action has been created, it’s best to test it out on a photo to make sure there are no problems with it. To try it on the very same photo, go to the History panel and click on the image thumbnail at the top. This reverts the photo to its original state before the adjustment layers were added. Next, return to the actions panel, highlight the action and press the Play button. Photoshop works its magic, and adds all three adjustments to the file so they are ready to enhance the picture. By handing over part of the post processing to Photoshop, tedious, repetitive steps like building adjustment layers and changing blend modes can be done by the program, saving you tons of time. All you do now is work through the adjustment layers and enhance the shot to your liking. Applied non-destructively, the can be revisited and further optimized in the future if needed.  Once you are finished, save your image and your done.

Once you have made a successful action, you’ll also want to save it.  Individual actions cannot be saved on their own, so you’ll have to save the set. To do that, highlight the Action Set, click the Action Panel flyout menu, and choose Save Actions. In the dialog box, just click Save and your action and set are stored in Photoshop’s Actions folder. Creating actions is all about saving time. As you become more action savvy, you’ll find yourself creating them for just about any task you find yourself repeating over and over.