Backscatter Xterminator

I was amazed when all the little backscatter dots that ruined my image disappeared with a single click. Backscatter Xterminator is an excellent gift for underwater photographers.

Med backscatter
BackscatterXterminator

Every underwater photographer has experienced the frustration: you've captured a perfect shot, perhaps one you've been planning for, only to find it marred by backscatter. The hours spent in Photoshop or Lightroom, painstakingly removing hundreds of these pesky dots, often end in dissatisfaction.

Thankfully, those days are over. Erin Quigley, a renowned American underwater photographer and image editing expert, has developed a solution: the Backscatter Xterminator Photoshop plugin. This tool, designed for ease of use, is a game-changer in the world of underwater photography.

Press Release
Received from: Go Ask Erin

Backscatter Xterminator Editing Tool Launches

Go Ask Erin

RC Astro and Go Ask Erin are thrilled to unveil Backscatter Xterminator (BSXT), a game-changing Photoshop plugin that eliminates backscatter from underwater photos with a single miraculous click.

A breakthrough for underwater photographers

Backscatter, the colloquial term for particulate matter suspended in water, has long been the bane of underwater photographers. Although many editing techniques exist to get rid of goo in underwater photos, nothing comes within light years of BSXT’s superpowers. 

New Video on AI in Underwater Photography

There are various ways that AI can be employed in the processing of underwater photos in postproduction as a tool in solving some common issues to improve images or as a creative tool.

Photo & Video

Have look at this video of an excellent, informative and entertaining presentation on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in underwater photography, namely Generative Fill in Photoshop, by regular contributor and avid underwater photographer and technical diver Michael Rothschild.

X-RAY MAGAZINE FEATURE

Retouching Underwater Images

It should not happen but sometimes it does anyway: those annoying little white dots in our underwater images, which detract from the overall impression of the photograph. Known as backscatter, these dots appear when small particles in the water reflect the light from a strobe. The more directly the strobe light hits a subject, the higher the risk of backscatter. That is why a strobe should not be pointed straight at a subject. Indirect lighting (by angling your strobes slightly outwards or inwards but never directly toward the subject) is the main “trick” to minimise or even prevent backscatter.

Words:
Rico Besserdich
Images:
Rico Besserdich
Download the full article as pdf ⬇︎
Photo & Video

Not much can be done with an underwater image that is covered with “white snow,” but to get rid of a few backscatter dots is no big deal. How many “dots” you are willing to remove is up to you, but it also depends on the image as well as how much labour you are willing to invest in postproduction. Just keep in mind that hours spent with the camera underwater are way more fun than hours spent in front of a computer.

Razer Blade 17 Laptop

Razer, a manufacturer well-known in the video gaming scene, has announced its newest line of laptops, with specs that make them very suitable for postproduction/editing of large files of underwater videos and photos.

Razer Laptop

The Blade 17 is powered by INTEL’s fastest CPU to date—the i9-11900H, an 8-core chip with 16 threads, and a frequency of 4.9 GHz (in turbo mode). The Blade 17 can be configured with up to three USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and an HDMI 2.1 port.

LG 31.5i Ergo IPS UHD 4K monitor

A monitor for photographers and designers

LG monitor
LG

With photographers and graphic designers in mind, the 31.5-inch “Ergo” monitor by LG features a full UHD 4K resolution of 3840 x 2160px, 95% coverage of ADOBE RGB 1998, reduced color shift at any possible viewing angle, and an “Ergo stand,” which offers expanded ergonomic adjustments to extend, retract, swivel and pivot the unit as well as adjust its height and tilt. Furthermore, the monitor provides USB Type-C input and output, HDMI, audio out and USB 3.

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Proper Export of Underwater Images in Postproduction

In this series of articles on postproduction of underwater images, we have worked a lot on white balance settings, basic and advanced exposure corrections, contrast and curves, advanced techniques of removing colour casts, basic and advanced retouching, final colour boost, cropping and sharpening. Finally, our image is ready! And now, we arrive at the question: What do I do with it? How do I save it for further editing, or how do I create final files for Facebook, websites and printing?

Words:
Rico Besserdich
Images:
Rico Besserdich
Lionfish, the image to be used for this tutorial
➥ Download the full article as pdf ⬅︎
Photo & Video

The good news is that if you did your entire image processing in a RAW converter, such as Adobe Camera Raw or Adobe Lightroom, you have nothing to worry about, with regard to keeping your work files. Editing RAW files is non-destructive, and your original photograph is never altered. You can always go back to “zero,” improve your postproduction, try something new or start from scratch (without loss of quality).

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Sharpening Underwater Images in Postproduction

The sharpness of a photograph depends on the camera in use, the lens and the camera settings. Every lens has an optimal range with respect to its sharp­ness performance.

Words:
Rico Besserdich
Images:
Rico Besserdich
Download the full article as pdf ⬇︎
Photo & Video

As a basic rule, most lenses provide their optimal sharpness with an aperture setting that is two full stops higher than the widest possible aperture of the lens. If you use a lens that comes with an aperture range of f/4 to f/22, it will most likely perform its optimum sharpness at f/8 (which is two full stops over f/4). Cheaper lenses that start with a maximum aperture of f/5.6 will perform well at around f/11.

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Vivid Color with Lab in Postproduction of Underwater Images

Adobe Photoshop is the number one tool for image editing and provides a large number of editing tools and options—far too many of them actually. But the good news here is that, for editing our underwater images, we only need a few. There are some real gems hiding in the depths of this software, and one of them is great for giving underwater images a final “color kick.” This tutorial refers to Adobe Photoshop CS6 but works with older versions as well.

Words:
Rico Besserdich
Images:
Rico Besserdich
Download the full article as pdf ⬇︎
Photo & Video

Let’s get started. Here, I have a photograph of a squid (see Image 1), as taken in 2008 with a Canon 40D camera, a 60mm macro lens and one single strobe. As always, I did the white balance and a few slight corrections of the contrast and highlights in Adobe Camera Raw. That took less than a minute, and the rest I will do in Photoshop itself.

Wacom Intuos Pro digital graphical tablet

The Intuos Pro Creative Pen Tablet from Wacom is a graphical tablet that can make a noticeable difference in the postproduction workflow of underwater images.

The Intuos Pro connects to your computer (PC or MAC) via USB or Bluetooth and is, after driver installation, ready to use and compatible with Adobe
Photoshop, Lightroom, and various other image editing software. It has customizable ExpressKeys that can be assigned to specific functions or shortcuts in Photoshop, for example, and comes with the Wacom Pro Pen 2, which has 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity, thus making advanced retouching and editing of underwater images a new and better experience.

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