Top Tips for How to Edit Underwater Photos & Videos on your iPhone

The ability to capture underwater experiences has become increasingly accessible in the last few years thanks to innovations in underwater phone cases and accessories that enable regular snorkelers, freedivers, and scuba divers like yourself to take your own photos and videos using just a smartphone. But just because you don’t have access to expensive equipment, that doesn’t mean you can’t take expert-level photos and videos.

With their advanced camera capabilities, iPhones are great tools for underwater adventures. Not only does an iPhone allow you to take beautiful photos and videos, but it also provides robust editing tools to enhance your underwater shots right from your device. In this article, we will provide practical, detailed tips for editing underwater photos and videos on your iPhone, helping you create captivating visual stories that you can share with the world. 

1. Preparing Your iPhone for Underwater Photography

Before you get into the water, it's essential to adequately prepare your iPhone for the underwater environment. Here are some steps to ensure your device is prepped for underwater photography:

Invest in a Quality Waterproof Case

A high-quality waterproof case is required to protect your iPhone when taking underwater photos. ProShot Dive cases are specifically designed for this purpose, offering total protection for a wide range of iPhone models, from the latest iPhone 15 series to older models like the iPhone 6. The ProShot Dive case is rated to a depth of 130 feet (40 meters), making it ideal for deep dives. For those who prefer snorkeling or shallow water photography, the ProShot Touch case, rated for 50 feet (15 meters), provides touchscreen compatibility, making it easier to navigate your phone. Both cases are compatible with all GoPro mounts, allowing you to attach them to various accessories like pole mounts and dive lights for unique shooting angles and better-quality captures.

Ensure Your iPhone Has Sufficient Storage

Underwater photography and videography can quickly fill up your storage space. Before heading out, ensure you have enough storage by offloading unnecessary files, apps, and media. Consider using cloud storage options like iCloud or Google Photos to back up your existing photos and free up space on your device. There’s nothing worse than spotting something incredible, like rare marine life, and being unable to capture it because of a lack of storage space.

2. Essential Apps for Editing Underwater Photos & Videos

Editing your underwater shots can significantly enhance their visual appeal. Water is a challenging element to contend with as it impacts the clarity and color of your photos and videos. Editing can help to rebalance your captures so they more effectively represent the underwater environment and marine life. 

Here are some recommended apps for photo and video editing:

Photo Editing Apps

• Snapseed: A versatile and user-friendly app with editing tools like color correction, brightness, contrast adjustments, and selective editing. Snapseed also offers filters and effects that can enhance your underwater photos. While not highly advanced, Snapseed is completely free to use. 

• Lightroom Mobile: Perfect for professional-grade edits, Lightroom Mobile provides advanced tools for color grading, sharpening, noise reduction, and detail enhancement. It also offers precise white balance correction, which is crucial for underwater photography. Although a free version is available, you will need a paid subscription to access advanced features. 

• AquaColorFix: AquaColorFix is a mobile app specifically designed for correcting the colors in underwater photos and videos. It has a one-tap correction feature that automatically adjusts colors using algorithms tailored to address the color cast commonly found in underwater environments. While there is limited control over the editing process, the app does allow you to edit the colors of both photos and videos. There is a free version but it applies a watermark to your edited photos and videos.

• Dive+: Dive+ is an app that caters to divers and offers various features, including underwater photo editing and dive logging. It also functions as a social platform for divers. The app has a one-tap solution to correct colors in underwater photos, restoring natural vibrancy. This feature is free to use. 

Video Editing Apps

• InShot: Offers basic editing tools like trimming, cutting, and adding music. You can also adjust basic settings like brightness, contrast, warmth, tint, and saturation to improve the look of your underwater videos. This is a great option for beginners and those creating videos for social media purposes.

• LumaFusion: This paid app has some great features for underwater video editing, including precise color correction, detail and clarity enhancement, selective adjustment capabilities, and creative control for better storytelling with multi-track editing, transitions and effects, and text overlays.

• Adobe Premiere Rush: Offers more advanced video editing capabilities, including stabilization, color correction, and multi-track editing. It has professional color grading tools like curves and color wheels for precise adjustments, helping you recover lost color vibrancy. It also has the ability to import custom Looks (LUTs) that are specifically designed for underwater color corrections. On the audio side, there are noise reduction tools that can eliminate unwanted water noise along with basic audio editing features. Adobe Premiere Rush has a freemium model, so it offers both free and paid options. 
  

3. Enhancing Color and Lighting

Underwater environments often result in photos with a blue or green tint due to water's light absorption properties. You can invest in color-correcting filters for your underwater housing, which will help balance colors in camera, but you can also edit the color and lighting after the fact. Correcting color balance and adjusting lighting is crucial for enhancing these photos.

Correcting Color Balance

• Dealing with Blue and Green Hues: Use apps to adjust the white balance. Increase the warmth to reduce blue tones and adjust the tint to correct green hues. For example, a photo of vibrant corals can benefit significantly from a warmer color temperature to bring out the reds and oranges. 

• Using Filters: Applying filters can naturally enhance colors. For underwater shots, filters with red or magenta tones can counteract the blue-green cast and restore natural colors. 

Adjusting Brightness and Contrast

• Increasing Shadows: Increasing shadows adds depth to your photos, making the colors of marine life and corals more vivid. For instance, increasing shadows in a photo of a coral reef can highlight the intricate details and textures of the corals.

• Decreasing Highlights: Decreasing the highlights in your captures can reduce glare, which occurs when sunlight reflects off the water’s surface, bringing out details in brightly lit areas. This adjustment is particularly useful when photographing fish or marine life that tend to reflect light.

4. Sharpening and Clarity Adjustments

Underwater images can often appear soft due to water particles and movement. Sharpening is essential to bring out the details.

• Enhancing Edges and Details: Sharpening tools can help enhance edges and bring out fine details in your photos. For example, sharpening the scales of a fish or the textures of coral can make your subjects stand out more against the ocean background, making photos more impactful.

• Balancing Clarity: It’s important to avoid overdoing the sharpness, which can introduce extra noise into images and videos. Adjust the clarity slider to enhance mid-tone contrast without making the image look unnatural. For instance, in a photo of a sea turtle, balancing clarity can highlight the turtle's shell patterns while maintaining a natural look.
  

5. Cropping and Composition

The proper composition can significantly improve the aesthetic of your photos and videos. While it may be hard to have total control over this while you’re swimming and diving, you can fix the composition with these cropping tips:

• Rule of Thirds: The rule of thirds suggests dividing your image into thirds, both horizontally and vertically. Align your subject along the grid lines for a balanced and aesthetically pleasing composition. For example, place a diver or marine life along the intersecting lines to draw the viewer's attention.

• Removing Unwanted Elements: Crop out distracting elements like stray fish or floating debris to focus on your main subject. This is particularly useful when capturing detailed shots of corals or marine life.

6. Reducing Noise and Enhancing Details

Low-light underwater shots often suffer from noise, which is unwanted grainy or colored speckles that can distort images and make them look less clear. Here are some techniques for noise reduction:

• Using Noise Reduction Sliders: Apps like Lightroom offer noise reduction sliders. Adjust these sliders to balance noise reduction without losing important details. Noise might be more noticeable in darker areas of your photos, like shadows around coral. 

• Enhancing Fine Details: Use detail enhancement tools to bring out textures and patterns in your photos. This is particularly effective in shots of corals, where intricate details can be highlighted without compromising the image quality.

7. Special Effects and Artistic Edits

Adding special effects can give your underwater photos a unique and creative touch.

• Vignettes: Subtle vignettes can draw attention to the subject by darkening the edges of the photo. This effect works well in portraits of divers or close-ups of marine life.

• Artistic Filters: Experiment with artistic filters for a distinctive look. For example, a sepia filter can give your underwater photos a vintage feel, while a high-contrast filter can make vibrant colors pop.

8. Editing Videos: Stabilization and Transitions

Underwater videos can be challenging due to water currents and movement. Stabilization and transitions are key to creating smooth, professional-looking videos.

• Using Stabilization Features: Apps like Adobe Premiere Rush offer stabilization features that can smooth out shaky footage. This is particularly useful when filming while swimming or diving.

• Adding Smooth Transitions: Transitions between clips can make your video flow more seamlessly. Use fades or cross-dissolves to merge clips and create a streamlined viewing experience.

9. Final Touches and Exporting

Before sharing your edited work, perform final reviews and touch-ups.

• Adjust Remaining Issues: Ensure color balance, lighting, and composition are all in harmony. Make any final adjustments to enhance the overall look of your photos and videos.

• Choosing Export Settings: Select the right export settings for social media or sharing. For high-quality posts, export in the highest resolution possible. Save your edits in formats that maintain quality, such as PNG for photos and MP4 for videos.

How to Edit Underwater Photos and Videos on Your iPhone

Editing underwater photos and videos properly on your iPhone can take your captures to the next level. By following these tips, you can enhance the quality and aesthetic of your underwater adventures. Don’t hesitate to experiment with different editing techniques and find your unique style.

Join the #ProShotAdventure Coral Conservation Contest!

We're thrilled to announce the #ProShotAdventure Coral Conservation Contest in partnership with Reefscapers! Capture the beauty of underwater corals and make a difference. For every 5 posts from different accounts, we'll donate $5 to coral conservation. Here’s how to participate:

1. Follow @reefscapersmaldives and @proshotcase on Instagram.

2. Tag 3 friends in the comments (5 comments = $5 donation).

3. Post a coral shot, use #ProShotAdventure, and tag @proshotcase and @reefscapersmaldives.

The more you post, the more corals we can adopt and help restore. Dive in, share your adventure, and contribute to a healthier ocean!

Happy diving and editing!