Creating Lightroom Presets for Underwater Photography

The first time I bought a Lightroom preset pack labelled "underwater special" online, I thought I had found the solution to all my editing problems. The pack promised stunning colours in one click, instant professional rendering, and a workflow ten times faster. I applied the first preset to a grouper photo taken in the Mediterranean. The result looked like an aquarium under purple neon lights.

A Lightroom preset for underwater photography is not a magic solution. It is a starting point, a set of base adjustments that saves you from starting from zero with every photo. But for it to work, it must be calibrated to your shooting conditions, your water type, and your camera. A preset built from tropical reef photos in crystal-clear water will produce nothing useful on a photo from a Belgian quarry dive.

The good news is that creating your own presets is neither difficult nor time-consuming. The logic is simple: edit a reference photo until you reach a satisfying result, then save those adjustments as a starting point for photos taken in similar conditions.

Terrestrial photography has a relatively consistent colour cast. The sun lights the scene the same way in Paris as in Tokyo (latitude and time of day aside). Underwater, everything changes. The colour cast depends on the water type (tropical, Mediterranean, fresh water, green water), the depth (progressive loss of red, then orange, then yellow), the angle of the sun, the suspended particles, and even the nature of the bottom (white sand that reflects light, dark rock that absorbs it).

An "underwater" preset built from photos taken at 5 metres in tropical water applies a moderate temperature correction and a slight blue desaturation. Apply it to a photo taken at 15 metres in the Mediterranean, and you will get an image that is either too warm (artificial orange) or still too green (insufficient correction).

This is why an effective preset must be specific to a set of conditions. Not universal, but targeted. Three well-calibrated presets cover more situations than a pack of twenty generic ones.

The most reliable method starts from a photo you have already edited successfully. A photo whose colours satisfy you, whose contrast is right, whose sharpness is good. This photo becomes your reference.

Choosing the reference photo

Pick a photo representative of your usual conditions. If you dive mainly in the Mediterranean between 5 and 15 metres, choose a photo taken in those conditions. If you alternate between tropics and temperate waters, you will need several reference photos (and therefore several presets).

The ideal photo is an "average" one: not your best (exceptional conditions, hard to replicate), not your worst (too many corrections, fragile result). A typical photo from your regular dives.

Editing the reference carefully

Edit this photo following the complete Lightroom workflow. Take the time to find the right adjustments, particularly for white balance, HSL, and dehaze. Compare with reference photos (your best past edits, photos from other photographers in the same waters).

The goal is not absolute perfection, but a "correct by default" rendering that will then need minor adjustments on each individual photo.

Saving as a preset

In Lightroom Classic (desktop), go to the Develop panel, click the "+" next to "Presets," then "Create Preset."

The crucial point is to check only the adjustments that should be included in the preset. Here is what to include and what to exclude.

Include in the preset: Temperature and tint (the base colour correction), full HSL (per-colour adjustments), dehaze and clarity (underwater haze reduction), base sharpening (capture value), colour profile (Adobe Landscape or other), camera calibration if relevant.

Exclude from the preset: Exposure (varies too much from photo to photo), crop and transform (specific to each image), local adjustments (masks, graduated filters), spot removal (particles, bubbles), vignetting (variable artistic choice).

This selection is essential. If you include exposure in your preset, every photo will receive the same exposure correction, which makes no sense when some are overexposed and others underexposed.

Three presets cover the majority of situations you will encounter underwater. Here are the starting adjustments for each, to refine according to your equipment and preferences.

"Tropical 0-10m" preset

This preset is calibrated for the clear water of tropical reefs (Maldives, Red Sea, Caribbean, Southeast Asia) at shallow depth, where natural light is still abundant and the blue cast is moderate.

Key adjustments: temperature between 7000K and 8000K (significantly warmer than the surface 5500K), tint slightly towards magenta (+5 to +15), moderate dehaze (15-25), light clarity (+10 to +20), global saturation unchanged or very slightly increased.

In HSL, blue is desaturated by 10-20% and brightened by 10-15% to prevent an overly intense background blue. Orange and yellow are slightly saturated to bring out fish and corals.

"Mediterranean 5-20m" preset

The Mediterranean has a distinct blue-green cast, different from tropical water, with more suspended particles (especially in summer with plankton). Visibility is often lower, and the haze is more pronounced.

Key adjustments: temperature between 6500K and 7500K, tint more marked towards magenta (+15 to +25) to counter the green component, more aggressive dehaze (25-40), increased clarity (+15 to +25).

In HSL, green is desaturated by 20-30% (this is the most important correction in Mediterranean waters). Blue is slightly warmed in hue. Reds and oranges are recovered with a moderate saturation boost.

The Catalan coast, Corsica, the Balearics, Greece: this preset covers the entire Mediterranean with minor adjustments.

"Green/cold water" preset

The green water of lakes, quarries, the North Sea, and the northern Atlantic coast presents a strong green cast, often with reduced visibility (3-8 metres). This is the most difficult water type to correct, and the one where a tailored preset saves the most time.

Key adjustments: temperature between 5500K and 6500K (less warming than for tropical blue), tint strongly towards magenta (+25 to +40), aggressive dehaze (35-50), increased clarity (+20 to +30).

In HSL, green is heavily desaturated (30-50%) and shifted in hue towards cyan. Yellow-green is desaturated by 20-30%. The goal is to neutralise the cast without creating an artificial look.

For dives in Belgium, Zeeland, or Brittany, this preset is the most useful starting point. I have detailed the specific corrections by water type in the dedicated article.

A preset created in Lightroom Classic syncs automatically to Lightroom Mobile via Adobe Cloud. This is the main advantage of the Adobe ecosystem for underwater photographers: create a precise preset on a large screen in the evening, use it on the phone the next morning on the boat.

If you do not use Lightroom Classic, you can create a preset directly in Lightroom Mobile. The process is the same: edit a reference photo, then save as a preset. Synchronisation goes the other direction (mobile to desktop).

For the photographer who edits primarily on a phone, mobile presets are a considerable accelerator. On a batch of 30 photos, applying a preset in one tap then manually adjusting for 2 minutes per photo is three times faster than starting from scratch each time.

The temptation is strong to treat a preset like an Instagram filter: apply and publish. That is a mistake that shows immediately. Every underwater photo is taken in slightly different conditions (depth, sun angle, distance to subject, type of bottom), and these variations require manual adjustments.

The preset handles the first 70% of the work. The white balance is in the right zone, the dehaze is calibrated, the colours are pointed in the right direction. The remaining 30% is your work as a photographer: refining exposure, adjusting selective correction on the subject, recovering a detail in the shadows, applying sharpening suited to the subject.

This is exactly the approach I advocate in AquaExposure training: understand editing before automating it. A preset without understanding produces random results. A preset with understanding produces fast and controlled results.

When you have edited enough photos to instinctively sense what a type of water demands in correction, your presets become a simple shortcut to a result you already know how to produce. And that is when they become truly useful, not because they replace your judgment, but because they translate it into a single gesture.

AquaExposure receives no affiliate commission on the software or services mentioned in this article. Recommendations are based on teaching experience and personal use.