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Editing underwater photos is a necessary step to bringing your diving shots to life. While there’s no shortage of AI-powered tools promising instant one-click results, they are often optimized for land photography (as UW photographers, we call this topside) but miss the mark when it comes to underwater scenes: pushing colours too far, oversaturating blues, casting unnatural hues, or burning highlights in pursuit of drama. The results can feel artificial, losing the subtlety and authenticity that reflect the true beauty of the underwater world. In my quest to look for the ultimate balance between automation and manual control, I took the opportunity of my recent update to macOS Sequoia on my M1 MacBook Pro to test two very different editing tools and approaches:
I. Apple’s Photos app, the free preinstalled app on macOS, and successor to iPhoto. A consumer app designed for beginners who want to start looking under the hood.
II. Canva's Affinity, a professional photo editing solution, and free alternative to Photoshop. With a plethora of adjustments both advanced and basic, a full raw developer and seamless integration with the vector and publishing studios.
I started with a RAW underwater photo, shot on a new dive site in Phú Quốc (see below): the untouched "before" shot. As expected, it had the muted tones typical of underwater images, with greens dominating the frame, while reds barely made an appearance. As explained in more detail in our course, an optical property of water is that it quickly absorbs red light, leaving most underwater photos looking flat and lifeless straight out of the camera.
Before: RAW picture, straight out of camera of porite and foliose corals in Phú Quốc. That was not the experience we lived underwater!
Apple's Photos app
Apple's Photos app
First, I turned to Apple’s Photos app. With the new OS upgrade, I wanted to test the improved auto-edit features in macOS Sequoia 15.1 and I spent about 20 seconds selectively applying quick adjustments, using the "Auto" button in settings like exposure, contrast, and white balance. The app worked quickly to brighten the image, reduce the green overcast, and enhance some details. While the results were a noticeable improvement over the RAW file, the limitations were apparent. Reds remained subdued, and the overall mood felt underwhelming. In all fairness, it was still a good attempt for such minimal effort but far from the richer depth I was aiming for.
Quick: The same picture, after clicking "auto" in a variety of grouped settings in Apple's Photos.
affinity
affinity
Next, working back from the RAW picture, I brought the same image into Affinity for more control over the editing process. Within 20 minutes, I worked through a range of adjustments: balancing colours, masking specific areas for localized corrections, enhancing textures, and refining lighting. The professional-grade tools allowed me to pull out the hidden reds, correct shadows and highlights, and give the image the nuances it deserved. With a natural balance that Apple’s Photos app couldn’t achieve. the final result felt truer to the real scene and scientific accuracy making the identification of coral families easier.
Advanced: Spending more time in Affinity Photo, the magic happens.
This experiment reminded me that Apple’s Photos app, while not a professional tool, has its strengths. It still does a decent job at quick edits or culling through hundreds of photos after a dive trip, helping you separate the keepers from the throwaways. You can use it to quickly test out the "potential" of your photos before spending time on them. You may even start applying some basic corrections. But for those standout shots — the ones you truly want to showcase — tools like Affinity or Photoshop offer the precision and control needed to turn a good photo into something extraordinary (see some of our favourite pictures at our Exhibit).
As often is the case, your sweet spot may very well require a blend of different solutions used together for what they are best at. In your quest to essentially find the best tool for the job while remaining mindful of the compromises you're willing to forego, you will create a very personal workflow which in turn will result in personal images and a unique style.
After six days of diving, I typically return with hundreds of photos, but only around 7% — or 20 to 25 images per week — make the final cut. The rest don’t live up to the moment I wanted to capture. Apple’s Photos app (or other free solutions such as Darktable), as a photo library manager, is invaluable for that initial triage, but the real magic happens in a professional suite where your carefully honed editing skills will bring to life the photo you dreamed of.
What about you? How many photos survive your post-dive cull? I’d love to hear how others approach the art of editing and curating their underwater memories. Let us know on our facebook page!
RAW
Apple's Photos app
Affinity by Canva
Computer configuration
MacBookPro (2020) Apple Silicon M1 macOS 15.1 Sequoia16 GB unified memory Apple Photo 10.0
1 TB internal SSD Affinity Photo 2.5.5 now Affinity
It’s worth noting that no generative AI was used in these workflows. None of the adjustments involved adding or removing elements to the photo. This process reinforced the joy of diving back into the scene a second time with hands-on editing, where the focus remains on faithfully bringing out the beauty of the underwater world rather than relying on shortcuts that more often than not will overdo it.
Want to learn how to capture and edit underwater picture and films?
Read more about this:
Read more about this:
The art and science of underwater photography, Bubbles & Lenses
Let's talk about A.I., Bubbles & Lenses
Start your UW Photography journey, Bubbles & Lenses
Canva's Affinity creative solution (free) compared to a Photoshop subscription at $70/month
Darktable, an open-source digital negative manager and raw developer [free]
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