If you've ever opened an underwater photo in Lightroom and thought "why is everything green?", you're not alone. Green water can be one of the more frustrating things to correct, particularly when the subject itself is already looking reasonably good.
When I'm editing a green underwater photo, I don't try to fix everything with one adjustment. I start with the overall color balance, then work on the colors that are still wrong. If the water and the subject need different treatment, I'll separate them with a mask rather than continuing to push the entire image in one direction.
Here's the process I use, starting with the simplest corrections and moving into the more advanced ones only when they're actually needed.
Why Underwater Photos Turn Green
Before changing anything, I find it useful to look at where the green is coming from.
Water doesn't transmit all wavelengths of light equally. Red light is absorbed relatively quickly by water, while blue and green wavelengths penetrate deeper. As you get deeper, or as the distance between the camera and subject increases, more of the warmer colors are lost.
That's why a photo can come out looking blue-green even though the scene looked completely different to you while diving.
There can also be a difference between the water and the subject. A nearby subject lit by your strobe may contain plenty of color, while the water behind it is still strongly blue or green. Trying to correct both with exactly the same adjustment often leads to one of them looking wrong.
Start With White Balance
My first adjustment is almost always white balance.
I don't try to get it perfect at this point. I just want to get the photograph into roughly the right neighborhood.
Start with Temperature and Tint. If the image is heavily green, the Tint slider is often particularly useful because it lets you move the image away from green and toward magenta.
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At this stage, I usually stop once the photo looks roughly right. If you have to push Tint dramatically just to make the water stop looking green, that's usually a sign that you need to deal with the remaining color more selectively.
Use the Color Mixer to Target the Green
Once the overall white balance is in a reasonable place, I move on to the Color Mixer.
This is where I stop trying to correct the whole photograph and start asking a more specific question: which colors are actually causing the problem?
I'll usually start by looking at Green, Aqua and Blue. I don't automatically change all three. I move one slider at a time and watch what happens to the water and the subject.
If the water has a strong green cast, reducing Green saturation can help. Sometimes shifting the Green hue toward a more suitable color works better than simply desaturating it. Depending on the image, Aqua may also be contributing to the green appearance.
Make these adjustments fairly gently. If you find yourself dragging a slider a long way, stop and look at the rest of the image.
That's because the Color Mixer isn't aware that you only want to change the water. If your subject contains green or aqua tones, those colors will change too.
For example, if reducing Green saturation makes the water look much better but also turns part of a turtle, coral reef or diver's equipment dull, that's a good indication that you should switch to a localized adjustment instead.
If you're using Lightroom's Point Color controls, they can also be useful when the unwanted green falls within a relatively specific range. Rather than broadly changing every green pixel, you can sample the particular color you want to target and refine its hue, saturation and luminance.
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When the Water and Subject Need Different Corrections
This is where I find masking particularly useful.
Imagine you've corrected the subject and it now has reasonably natural colors, but the water around it is still green. You don't want to keep changing the global white balance or Color Mixer because you'll start damaging the subject you've already fixed.
Instead, create a mask for the surrounding water and make a small adjustment there.
Depending on the photograph, you may want to lower saturation, reduce texture or clarity, or make a small temperature or tint adjustment. You're not trying to turn the water into a perfect shade of blue. You're trying to make the remaining green less distracting.
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The opposite can happen too. Sometimes the water looks fine but the subject still has a green cast. In that case, I'd mask the subject and correct it independently.
This is particularly useful with strobe-lit photographs. The subject and background can have very different color characteristics, so treating them as two separate parts of the image often gives you a much better result than trying to find one global setting that works for both.
A quicker way to make these corrections
If you edit a lot of underwater photos, you'll probably notice that the same problems come up again and again: a green cast, weak contrast, loss of clarity, or colors that need a little extra help. Rather than making all of these adjustments from scratch every time, I often use individual presets as a starting point.
That's the idea behind the Underwater Toolkit. Instead of applying one fixed look, it contains individual presets for common underwater problems that can be combined and adjusted independently. For example, you might use one to correct a green color cast, another to improve clarity, and another to bring back contrast.
Because the presets can be stacked, you can build the correction around what a particular photo actually needs rather than applying the same treatment to every image.
→ Explore the Underwater Toolkit
Pro Tip 1: Use the Tone Curve for a Stubborn Color Cast
If the Color Mixer gets you close but the image still has a slight green or cyan cast, the Tone Curve gives you another way to fine-tune the color.
In Lightroom, open the Tone Curve and switch from the RGB curve to the individual Red, Green or Blue channels. You're essentially telling Lightroom which color to add or remove from particular brightness levels.
For a green cast, I would start with the Green channel. Click near the middle of the curve to create a control point, then make a very small adjustment. Dragging the point down removes green and adds magenta; dragging it up adds green. Start with a tiny movement, you usually don't need much.
The useful part is that you can decide where in the image the correction has the most effect. For example, if the green is particularly noticeable in the midtones, place your control point around the middle of the curve rather than changing the entire curve. You can also add a second point near the shadows (bottom) or highlights (top) to keep those areas closer to their original color.
Again: The key here is restraint.
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Pro Tip 2: Try the Calibration Panel
The Calibration panel is another tool I reach for when the usual corrections aren't quite producing the color I'm after.
It works at a different level from the Color Mixer, so even a small Calibration adjustment can change the overall color rendering of the photograph quite noticeably.
When I'm dealing with a stubborn green underwater image, I'll usually experiment with the Green Primary and Blue Primary controls. There's no set of numbers that to apply to every photo because the result depends heavily on the camera, lighting and original image.
Instead, move the Hue slider a little in one direction, look at the effect on the water and subject, and then try the other direction. Once you find a useful direction, use Saturation to fine-tune it.
The key is to keep the adjustments small. Calibration can produce a dramatic improvement, but it can also produce strange colors very quickly.
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Don't Try to Make Every Underwater Photo Blue
This is probably the most useful piece of advice I can give when correcting underwater color.
Fixing a green underwater photo doesn't mean turning the water deep blue. If the original conditions were green or had poor visibility, trying to create tropical-blue water can make the result look more artificial than the original.
I usually aim for a believable color rather than a specific shade of blue. If the subject looks natural and the water no longer distracts from it, that's often a better result than pushing the correction further just to eliminate every trace of green.
Final Thoughts
When I'm fixing a green underwater photo, I try not to think of it as a single problem with a single solution. I start with white balance, use the Color Mixer to target the remaining color cast, and then use masks when different parts of the image need different treatment.
If the usual adjustments aren't enough, Tone Curves and the Calibration panel give me additional ways to fine-tune the color without simply pushing the entire photograph further toward blue.
If you're still struggling with the rest of the image, such as exposure, contrast, clarity or other common underwater problems, my complete guide to editing underwater photos in Lightroom covers the full editing process step by step.
And if you'd like to make the editing process considerably quicker and easier, check out the Underwater Toolkit.
→ Check out the Underwater Toolkit
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I fix green underwater photos if I shoot JPEG instead of RAW?
Yes. The techniques in this guide work with both RAW and JPEG files, but RAW gives you considerably more flexibility when correcting strong color casts because it retains more image information. With JPEGs, you may need to make smaller adjustments to avoid degrading the image.
If you're shooting underwater, I'd recommend RAW whenever your camera allows it. Most cameras and action cams like GoPro, Insta360 and DJI Osmo Action support shooting in RAW.
Why does my underwater photo look green in Lightroom but not on my camera screen?
Your camera's preview is usually a processed JPEG preview, even when you're shooting RAW. Lightroom may initially display the RAW file differently, so the image can look noticeably different when you first import it. This doesn't necessarily mean anything went wrong with the photograph.
Why does my underwater photo turn purple when I try to remove the green?
Usually because the correction has gone too far. Green and magenta sit opposite each other in the color balance, so adding too much magenta to compensate for green can quickly produce an unnatural result. Back off the adjustment and make smaller corrections across several controls instead.
Can I fix a completely green underwater photo in Lightroom?
Often, yes, but there are limits. If the photograph contains enough color information, Lightroom can make a substantial improvement. If you're working with a severely underexposed JPEG or a photograph taken at considerable depth and distance, there may simply not be enough original color information to recover.
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