Coral Photography Editing Tips

[Joshua Warne]

What’s up reefers,
I recently purchased a cannon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens to go with my cannon rebel t3i I’ve had for many years, but never used. Over that last month I’ve been dabbling with a few editing trick I thought some might find useful. So here goes!
This is the original photo shot in RAW, post editing. You can see there is a ton of dead space and if you ask me the standard angle is a bit boring.

I then rotate the photo through the cropping tool to create a more interesting angle, while also zooming in on the image.

Boom! You not have an interesting photo with very little dead space and nice leading lines coming from the top left corner that draw your eye to the focused area!

Here we have a pretty nice shot as is. It’s a little soft, and has a lot of wasted space that cause you eye to wander.

Next you’re going to bust out the tilted crop and zoom with an added twist! The flip horizontally tool!

Now you have a more interesting angle, no distractions and focus that draws your eye in from left to right.

Here is another photo that is filled with dead space, but has a lot of potential! Let’s implement what we learned! Rotation crop and horizontal flip to take our image to the next level!
Edited image pre crop

Rotation crop

Horizontal flip

Editing is all personal preference, with one exception. As a hobbyist your goal is to represent the beauty of the coral and make it look as close to what the coral looks like to the naked eye as possible. Most importantly have fun and appreciate the journey! Let me know if you have any questions!
Stay hooked guys!
-HookedReefer

 

[Big E]

Nice work............this is off topic but did you use a custom white balance on those pics? I have a new Cannon T7i and having a hard time with white balance setting.

My old Cannon was easy to setup and the custom white balance was a breeze.

 

[Joshua Warne]

Nice work............this is off topic but did you use a custom white balance on those pics? I have a new Cannon T7i and having a hard time with white balance setting.

My old Cannon was easy to setup and the custom white balance was a breeze.

Not off topic at all! We’re here to talk photos! I use a custom white balance that I only had to set once. I just used white piece of paper under my radions. It works well under my T5s as well.
My only issue I have is when I import my photos my program tries to temperature balance my photos when I shoot anything purple even when it’s on “as shot.” Coralline mostly!

Polyp colors look normal, but coralline looks alien... I found out I need to max my temp setting before finalizing the import!

 

[Big E]

Ok thanks, I'll try that outside of the tank with paper.

That is odd on the coralline.

Do you shoot in RAW? Are you using Cannon DPP or another program?

 

[Joshua Warne]

Ok thanks, I'll try that outside of the tank with paper.

That is odd on the coralline.

Do you shoot in RAW? Are you using Cannon DPP or another program?

Very odd. Release some pretty questionable coralline photos before I figured it out! Lol.
I use another program to import. It’s pretty poor if it’s pre editing my photos though. Any recommendations? Yes, I always shoot in RAW.

 

[Big E]

Just download the DPP program for your camera. You can do almost anything with it if you shoot in RAW.

https://www.canon-europe.com/support/

You have to know what your camera is called in Europe. It should be on your manual cover that came with the camera or in a PDF manual. My Rebel T7i is the EOS 800D

 

[alpinestar]

awesome tips

 

[Daniel@R2R]

LOVE THIS!! Thanks so much for sharing!!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Will be playing with my new camera this weekend.... Nikon D5600

 

[Joshua Warne]

LOVE THIS!! Thanks so much for sharing!!

No worries!

 

[Joshua Warne]

awesome tips

Thanks man!

 

[Joshua Warne]

Will be playing with my new camera this weekend.... Nikon D5600

Oh, heck yes! Then the learning will begin! Let me know if you have any questions. I’m more than happy to help.

 

[SMB]

You might also look into focus stacking. If there is no coral movement (pumps off) you can focus on the back of the subject coral and take multiple images as you move the focus point forward. You can end up with 10-20 images that are then combined with software like Photoshop or Helicon Focus.
It gives amazing definition.
This is a 16 image stack of a flower. You can see sharp focus front to back.
Haven't tried it in my tank but after my usual Sunday cleaning, I will give it a try and get back.

 

[Joshua Warne]

You might also look into focus stacking. If there is no coral movement (pumps off) you can focus on the back of the subject coral and take multiple images as you move the focus point forward. You can end up with 10-20 images that are then combined with software like Photoshop or Helicon Focus.
It gives amazing definition.
This is a 16 image stack of a flower. You can see sharp focus front to back.
Haven't tried it in my tank but after my usual Sunday cleaning, I will give it a try and get back.

That is very interesting. Going to give it a shot this weekend. Post your results. I will do the same! [emoji846]

 

[SMB]

These four images are all created with focus stacking. Each image is made from 10 pictures focused from back to front and combined with Helicon Focus software. This allows for the entire coral to be in focus which can be hard/impossible to do with one image.

 

[Crimsonvice]

Your pics are awesome! Are you using a tripod? I have been playing around with a new camera, and cant seem to get things right. 1200 pictures and might get 2 that are half way decent.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Love this!

 

[jasonrusso]

Same lens, 10K white balance, but I need to mess with it more in lightroom

 

[vetteguy53081]

Gotta love photography and Digital world of photography. We've come a Long way !!!

 

[SMB]

Your pics are awesome! Are you using a tripod? I have been playing around with a new camera, and cant seem to get things right. 1200 pictures and might get 2 that are half way decent.

I do use a tripod because the lighting in a tank is relatively low and hand holding will not always be tac sharp. You could bump the ISO up to get faster SS but that introduces noise into the image.
With the tripod (and cable release) I can use slow SS with an F stop of around 11 to 16 depending on the lens, and not have to go to high with the ISO.