Comments on: Aquariums and Photoshop, It’s Not What You Think

By: Pet Care Info Online » Blog Archive » Latest aquarium news – Marine Aquarium and Coral Phot

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:38:31 +0000

[...] Marine Aquarium and Coral Photo Editing with Photoshop | glassbox … [...]

By: Richard Gilliland

Richard Gilliland — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:40:21 +0000

Very cool article, It is sometimes hard to capture the true color even with an slr camera, post editing is very important to bring back the true color of what you see with the naked eye

By: Nicholas Sadaka

Nicholas Sadaka — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:10:23 +0000

@Mike-I actually tried with and without flash and sometimes one way would come out a bit better than the other, but I couldn’t get even close with color whether using the flash or not. I wonder if maybe they’d have come out better if I took them from above the aquarium with no glass to penetrate, but while some things like the clam look better from above, Tangs definitely do not. It would just be cool if their was an easy way to capture exactly what you see (or at least close to it) without having to dump thousands of dollars into a camera and being a professional photographer. It’s funny because I can now tell the retailers who have the photoshop capabilities or real nice cameras and those that do not. I see some retailers that seem to have the exact same issues I do and it’s a shame for both the customer and retailer because a customer is going to always look for the great colored creature and the retailer my have just that coral but can’t capture the image to prove it.

By: Gary Parr

Gary Parr — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:48:12 +0000

The goal of all photography should be to deliver what was seen. Producing an image that is “better than it looks in reality” is photographic art and should be labeled as such. The skill in photography is to be able to find, recognize, and capture good light on an interesting subject. When that is accomplished, and coupled with good composition, the photographer should not have to make the image better than was seen.

When it comes to reef aquarium photography, correcting the white balance is essential. But once that is done, additional “manipulation” of the image should be limited to levels, shadow/highlight, contrast, and, to a very limited degree, saturation adjustments (sometimes you have to back off on saturation to allow detail to show). If the starting point is a RAW image, and it should be, sharpening will also be required.

It’s unfortunate that Photoshop has become a “four-letter word” in reef aquarium photography, primarily because unscrupulous coral sellers will do anything to make a buck, including deceiving the customer. There is not much that can be done about it other than to point out when images are not an accurate representation of reality and identify those who deceive.

BTW, for basic image post-processing, Photoshop Elements will do everything you need for a lot less money than Photoshop. Also, if you are a student or have family members who are students or employed in education, educator discounts are an excellent way to save a ton of money on software. My favorite source, when I was teaching, is http://www.academicsuperstore.com

Gary

By: Mike Clifford

Mike Clifford — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:19:45 +0000

@ Nicholas – It sounds like you were using a flash? The flash is essentially around a 3k light source that will make corals appear brown. Except for fish, flashes are generally not used for aquarium photography (for fish they are almost a must, in order to shoot at the high shutter speed to “freeze” the fish).

@ Eric – to your last question. I believe it can be either. Capturing exactly what the human eye sees is EXTREMELY difficult, and an art form in and of itself. On the other hand, it is possible to take a beautiful photo that looks better than real life, without it looking “fake” (i.e., oversaturated, blue egg crate/sand, etc.).

By: Nat

Nat — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:51:38 +0000

Purple hands!!!

By: Nicholas Sadaka

Nicholas Sadaka — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:44:46 +0000

I’m admittedly not a photo guy or very much of a computer guy but I do like taking pictures of my aquarium and it’s occupants to share with friends. I recently did so with my very affordable $100 Kodak camera that really does take fantastic pics for how much it costs. When I took pictures of our backyard pond, they looked fantastic and everything looked as it did when I was looking at the same thing with my eyes. However, when I went to take aquarium pics, I had great difficulty showing my aquarium inhabitants the way I see them with my eyes. I use 150 watt 10K MH’s and Actinic VHO’s and the pics either looked overy bright or overly dull. The only thing that seemed to come out somewhat true to form was my Crocea Clam. My blue tangs looked so neon that they appear to be glowing. My beautiful Acropora Tortuosa which is a mix of beautiful greens and blue with a tiny tan underlying color showed almost no greens or blues and looked almost completely tan. A very bright green monti also came out looking tannish. I use to hate the thought of buying photoshopped creatures, but now I certainly understand the need for either that or maybe just a much better camera than I have. It was interesting to see those color differences though-shocking to me, really.