How to Remove Backscatter from Underwater Photos

Backscatter is one of the most common problems in underwater photography. Those small bright spots and particles scattered throughout an image can distract from an otherwise great shot, especially when you're using a flash or strobe.

The good news is that you can prevent much of it while shooting, and Lightroom and Photoshop both give you ways to clean up backscatter afterwards.

There's also an important point that is easy to overlook: you don't necessarily need to remove every particle manually. Editing the overall image first can already make a surprising difference. Once you've corrected the color, contrast and clarity, much of the backscatter may become less noticeable, leaving you with only a few distracting spots to remove. Or the opposite might happen, with the edit making more, or different, spots appear, rendering some of your pre-edit removal work useless.

In this guide, we'll look at what causes backscatter, how to reduce it while shooting, and how to clean it up in Lightroom and Photoshop.

What Is Backscatter in Underwater Photography?

Backscatter is caused by small particles suspended in the water. These can include sand, plankton, sediment and other tiny particles that are often invisible to the naked eye.

When light from your flash or strobe hits these particles, some of that light is reflected and scattered back toward the camera. Because the particles are suspended in the water between the camera and the subject, they can appear as bright dots or small blurry spots in the photograph.

The effect becomes particularly noticeable in dark water or when you're photographing a subject from a distance.

The important thing to remember is that backscatter isn't something that happened during editing. It's information that was captured in the photograph. You therefore have two ways of dealing with it: reduce it when taking the photo, or remove distracting particles afterwards.

Ideally, you do both.

How to Reduce Backscatter When Taking Underwater Photos

Removing backscatter in post-processing can be time-consuming, so preventing it in the first place is always preferable.

The biggest factor is usually the position of your light.

Keep your strobe out of the lens's path

If your strobe is positioned close to the camera and points directly toward the subject, its light travels through the same water you're photographing. Suspended particles in that area are illuminated and can reflect light straight back into the lens.

Moving the strobe away from the camera and pointing it slightly across the scene instead of directly along the lens's viewing direction can dramatically reduce this.

This is one reason underwater photographers often position their strobes out to the sides of the housing.

Get closer to your subject

Getting closer isn't just useful for composition. It also means there is less water between your camera and the subject.

Less water means fewer particles between you and your subject, and usually better color and contrast as well.

If you can fill more of the frame with your subject instead of shooting from several metres away, you're often solving several underwater photography problems at once.

Avoid disturbing the bottom

If you're photographing close to the seabed, be careful not to kick up sand or sediment. Even a small amount of movement can create a cloud of particles that makes an otherwise clear scene difficult to photograph.

This is especially important when diving in areas with sandy or silty bottoms.

Use natural light when it makes sense

If conditions allow you to shoot without artificial light, you eliminate one of the main causes of visible backscatter: your strobe illuminating particles directly in front of the lens.

Of course, this isn't always practical. As you go deeper, natural light disappears and colors are absorbed, so strobes are often essential for getting good color. The goal isn't necessarily to avoid artificial light, but to use it in a way that minimizes the amount of illuminated water between you and your subject.

How to Remove Backscatter in Lightroom

If you've already taken the photograph, Lightroom can handle a moderate amount of backscatter surprisingly well.

Before you start removing individual particles, though, edit the photograph normally first.

This is an important step. Correcting the white balance, color, exposure and contrast can change how visible the backscatter is. Increasing contrast or clarity might make some particles more obvious, while restoring color and improving the overall image can make others much less distracting.

You may find that after your normal edit, you only need to remove a handful of particularly noticeable particles.

1. Start with the overall edit

Begin by correcting the image as you normally would. Use our comprehensive step-by-step underwater photo editing guide to help you.

Adjust the exposure and white balance, restore the colors that were lost underwater, and work on contrast and clarity. If you're using a Lightroom preset, like from our extensive underwater preset collection, this is also the point where you would apply it.

Don't worry about the individual particles yet.

The purpose of this stage is to get the photograph looking approximately the way you want it to look before you start retouching.

2. Mask the background

Before you start removing individual particles, check where the majority of the backscatter is. If the backscatter is mostly visible in the background, try masking the surrounding water and making subtle adjustments such as lowering texture, clarity, exposure or saturation. This won't remove the particles, but it can make them much less noticeable while helping the subject stand out. In some images, this may reduce the need for any manual clean-up at all.

3. Decide how much backscatter actually needs to go

Now zoom into the image and look at the remaining particles.

You don't necessarily need to remove every single one.

A tiny particle that is barely visible when the photograph is viewed normally probably isn't worth spending 30 seconds removing. Concentrate on the bright or distracting particles that draw your eye away from the subject.

This is particularly important with underwater photographs because some particles are simply part of the environment. Trying to create a completely particle-free image can sometimes make the photograph look unnaturally clean.

4. Use Lightroom's Remove tool

Select Lightroom's Remove tool and work through the most distracting particles.

For small, isolated spots, a relatively small brush is usually all you need. Click or brush over the particle and let Lightroom determine a suitable area to use for the correction.

For larger or more awkward particles, you may need to adjust the size of the brush or manually choose where Lightroom samples from.

Don't try to clean the entire photograph while zoomed in at 200%. Work in sections, but periodically zoom back out to see how the image actually looks at a normal viewing size.

5. Be careful around important details

Backscatter can sometimes appear right next to your subject, which makes automatic removal more difficult.

If Lightroom's automatic result looks wrong, undo it and try a smaller selection or choose a different source area manually.

Pay particular attention around things like:

• eyes
• coral edges
• fins and equipment
• hair
• fine textures

A small amount of remaining backscatter is usually less noticeable than an obvious cloning or healing mistake.

How to Remove Heavy Backscatter in Photoshop

Lightroom is convenient for moderate amounts of backscatter, but Photoshop can be a better choice when an image is heavily affected or when you need very precise control.

The Spot Healing Brush is often a good place to start. For larger or more complicated areas, the Healing Brush or Clone Stamp can give you more control over exactly where the replacement pixels come from.

A useful approach is to work on a separate empty layer where possible. This keeps your retouching non-destructive and makes it easier to reduce or undo individual corrections later.

As with Lightroom, don't feel that you need to remove every particle. Work on the ones that are actually visible and distracting.

It's also worth periodically zooming back out. At high magnification, you can spend a lot of time correcting details that nobody will ever notice when looking at the finished photograph.

Should You Remove Backscatter Before or After Applying a Preset?

After your initial editing is usually the better approach.

This is especially important when using an underwater preset.

A preset can change the color, contrast, exposure and overall tonal balance of an image. Those changes can significantly affect how visible the backscatter is. Some particles that looked very obvious in the original photograph may become much less noticeable after the image has been properly corrected.

For that reason, a sensible workflow is:

1. Apply your preset(s) or make your initial edits
↓
2. Adjust the result to suit the individual photograph
↓
3. Evaluate the remaining backscatter
↓
4. Remove only the particles that are still distracting

You may discover that very little retouching is necessary.

	Unedited.
	Edited. Backscatter already less visible.
	After manual backscatter removal.

This is why I wouldn't recommend spending time removing backscatter from every original image before you've edited it. You're potentially doing work that the overall edit may make unnecessary.

Can Lightroom Presets Remove Backscatter?

Not directly.

A Lightroom preset can change the overall appearance of an image, but it can't selectively identify and remove individual particles in the way a healing or cloning tool can.

That said, a good underwater edit can reduce the apparent visibility of backscatter by improving the color, contrast and tonal balance of the photograph. In some cases, that's enough that the remaining particles don't need any further attention.

For more severe backscatter, you'll still want to use Lightroom's Remove tool or a dedicated retouching tool in Photoshop.

This distinction is important: presets can improve the image around the backscatter, while retouching tools actually remove individual particles.

What About Other Common Underwater Photo Problems?

Backscatter is only one part of the underwater editing process. Depending on the conditions in which you took the photograph, you may also have to deal with green or blue color casts, weak colors, low contrast or a lack of clarity.

The Underwater Toolkit is designed specifically for these individual corrections. Unlike a traditional one-click preset, its presets can be stacked together so you can address the problems your particular photo has.

For example, you might use one preset to improve the color, another to add clarity, and another to bring back contrast. You can combine them in whatever way works for the image and adjust the intensity of each one individually.

→ Explore the Underwater Toolkit

Final Thoughts

Editing underwater photos is mostly about bringing back what the water took away: color, contrast, clarity and depth. Start with the overall look of the image, make the adjustments your particular photo needs, and only then deal with smaller distractions such as remaining backscatter.

The goal isn't to make every underwater photo look perfectly clean or heavily processed. A good edit should make the subject stand out while still looking natural.