Eye for the Extraordinary — Chapter 01
Have you ever filmed a beautiful underwater scene, only to find out that your footage looks blue, green, or completely different from what you remember?
It is one of the most common frustrations in underwater photography and videography. The colors that seemed vivid to our eyes can look muted or disappear entirely once we review our images. Part of this is our brain: it automatically adapts to the blue light around us, a bit like built-in white balance, and a camera can't do that nearly as well. But the real cause is the water itself, which changes the way light travels. To understand why underwater images look the way they do, we first need to look at what happens to light underwater.
Why do colors disappear underwater?
Sunlight may look white, but it is made up of different colors of visible light, each with its own wavelength. When sunlight enters the water, these wavelengths are absorbed at different rates.
Red light is absorbed first, followed by orange and yellow. Green travels farther, while blue generally penetrates the deepest in clear ocean water. Even there, much of the red light is already gone after about five meters of water. This is why underwater scenes often take on a blue appearance. As you descend, more of the warmer colors disappear, leaving the blue wavelengths to dominate the available light. However, this doesn't mean that all water is blue.
Why does water sometimes look green?
The color of water depends on more than depth. Its clarity and composition also play an important role. In clear ocean water, blue wavelengths can travel farther, giving the environment its familiar blue appearance. In other locations, water may look green because of microscopic algae, suspended particles, or dissolved organic matter. These substances interact with light differently. For example, microscopic algae contain pigments such as chlorophyll, which absorb mainly blue and red light. The green light that remains becomes more prominent. Other materials, such as dissolved organic matter, can absorb more blue light, sometimes giving water a greener, yellowish, or brownish appearance. Green water can therefore behave quite differently from clear blue water. It often contains more suspended material, which can reduce visibility, lower contrast, and make distant subjects appear hazy or less defined.
This is also why only adjusting the color of an image cannot always recreate the appearance of clear tropical water. The difference is not only in the color itself, but also in the way light travels through the environment.
Depth vs. distance: why getting closer matters
We often associate color loss with depth, and for good reason. The deeper we descend, the less natural light remains, and the more pronounced these changes become. But there is another factor that is just as important: distance.
Even in shallow water, a subject several meters away can already lose much of its natural color. This happens because light must travel through the water to reach the subject and then travel back towards the camera. The longer that journey, the more light is absorbed and scattered along the way.
Imagine filming a diver from a short distance compared to filming the same diver from across a large underwater space. Even if both shots are taken at exactly the same depth, the closer subject will retain more color, contrast, and detail. This is one of the reasons why getting closer to your subject is such an important principle in underwater imagery. Framing and composition matter, of course, but reducing the amount of water between your camera and the subject plays a significant role too.
Have you ever wondered why macro photographs or videos can look surprisingly clear, even when filmed in relatively murky water? One of the main reasons is the short distance between the camera and the subject. Less water between them means less opportunity for light to be absorbed or scattered, helping preserve color, contrast, and detail.
A comparison of the same subject captured from different distances, demonstrating how the amount of water between the camera and subject affects image quality, clarity, and detail.
Absorption vs. scattering: what's the difference?
Although these two processes often happen together, they are not the same. Both affect the light that eventually reaches your camera, but they do so in different ways.
Absorption occurs when water or substances within it take in light energy. Different wavelengths are absorbed at different rates, which is why certain colors disappear sooner than others.
Imagine a colored filter placed in front of a light source. A red filter allows mostly red light to pass through while absorbing much of the other visible light. The absorbed colors are removed from the light passing through the filter.
Water does something similar, although it absorbs different wavelengths at different rates. Red light is absorbed much more quickly than blue light, so as sunlight travels deeper into the water, the amount of red light gradually decreases. Eventually, very little of it remains.
Scattering, on the other hand, happens when light is redirected in different directions as it interacts with water molecules and suspended particles.
Imagine looking through a clear window compared to looking through a misty one. The objects behind the mist may still be there, but they appear less sharp and less defined. Scattering has a similar effect underwater.
It reduces contrast, affects visibility, and can make distant subjects look hazy. In water with many suspended particles, light can scatter more strongly, making it harder to capture clear details.
The key difference is that absorption removes light from the path, while scattering redirects it. Understanding this matters because not every underwater image that looks washed out has a color problem. Sometimes, the bigger issue is the amount of light being scattered between the camera and the subject.
Why can't underwater lights reach very far?
Artificial lighting can help bring back some of the colors that disappear underwater. A video light or strobe introduces its own light source, allowing the camera to record colors that natural sunlight may no longer provide at that depth. However, artificial light has its limitations too.
The light emitted by a lamp must travel through the water before it reaches the subject. On its way, some of its energy is absorbed and some is scattered. The light reflected by the subject then has to travel back through the water to reach the camera. The farther away the subject is, the more light is lost along the way. On top of that, light spreads out as it travels, so it weakens quickly with distance, just as it does on land. This is why underwater lights are most effective when used relatively close to the subject.
Increasing the power of a light does not eliminate this limitation. More powerful lights can help, but they cannot change the way water absorbs and scatters light. In many situations, positioning the light closer to the subject will make a greater difference than simply using a more powerful one.
Can you fix blue or green underwater photos and videos?
The short answer is yes, to an extent. The best approach depends on the environment you're filming or photographing in and the look you want to achieve.
White balance helps your camera render colors more accurately by adjusting how it interprets the light reaching its sensor. It can correct some unwanted blue or green color casts, but it has its limits. When certain wavelengths are heavily reduced or no longer reach your camera, white balance cannot fully restore the original colors or recover detail that was never recorded. Pushing the correction too far can also introduce noise or produce unnatural-looking results.
So, will white balance alone give you the look you're after?
It depends on the conditions and the result you want. For some recreational dives, adjusting white balance may be enough to achieve a pleasing image. In other situations, especially at greater depths or in darker environments, artificial lighting may be necessary to bring back more natural colors, as long as you can get close enough to your subject.
For photography, strobes can illuminate nearby subjects with a brief burst of light. For videography, continuous video lights serve a similar purpose.
We'll explore white balance and the use of artificial lighting in more detail in future chapters. For now, the important thing to understand is that correcting an image and restoring missing information are two very different things.
Correcting color vs. restoring color
When we correct an image, we adjust the color information that the camera has already recorded. We can reduce a blue or green color cast, make the image warmer, and improve the overall balance.
Restoring color is different. It would mean bringing back information that was never captured in the first place. If red wavelengths were absorbed before reaching the subject and no artificial light was used to illuminate it, the camera simply has no original red information to recover. Software can estimate or simulate missing colors, but it cannot truly recreate light that never reached the sensor. This is why pushing color corrections too far can produce unnatural results, excessive noise, or strange-looking tones. There is only so much we can do with the information available in the original image.
Understanding what can be corrected and what cannot be restored helps us make better decisions underwater and during editing. It is also one of the reasons why action cameras often struggle on deeper dives: their small sensors and compressed recording capture less color information in low light, leaving less room to correct it later.
What to remember
We often think of water as a transparent medium through which we film, but it actively changes the light that reaches our subjects and, eventually, our camera. Color loss depends on depth, distance, water clarity, and the amount and direction of available light. Absorption removes light, while scattering redirects it and reduces clarity. Artificial lighting can help, but it also loses effectiveness as the distance through water increases.
The more we understand these processes, the better we can work with the conditions we have rather than constantly trying to correct them afterwards.
Great underwater imagery begins with understanding light.
Chapter 02 is arrives with our next monthly newsletter, so stay tuned. Follow @xr.explorers on Instagram so you don't miss the next lesson in the series.
Written by Greta Freiwaldova, art director, underwater filmmaker and co-founder of XR Explorers.
