How to colour-correct underwater photos in Five Meters
Start with the untouched full-resolution photograph and let Five Meters perform the colour restoration. Judge the restored frame before using exposure, water, haze or detail controls as finishing adjustments.
The near sand, mid-distance diver and distant wreck provide different checks for colour, haze and surviving detail.
Read the photograph before touching a control
Take the GoPro wreck example. Pale sand fills the near seafloor, a diver crosses the middle of the frame and the wreck disappears into blue haze. The photograph needs colour restoration, haze control and careful finishing—jobs Five Meters handles in order rather than with one slider.[1]
Open the original camera file, not a copy saved from social media.[2] Before the restoration runs, note anything that will help you judge the result: black neoprene, a silver tank, yellow fins, pale sand and brown growth. These are useful checks, not calibration targets. Sand is not always neutral and equipment colours vary.
Also note capture limits you should leave alone later—a clipped torch, motion blur, soft corners—so you can judge the restoration on colour and separation rather than chasing texture that never reached the sensor.
Let the model do the colour work
Five Meters starts with an underwater model, not a red boost. The model produces a restored version of the photograph, from which the app derives a full cross-channel colour transform.[3] Each output channel can draw on the recorded red, green and blue values together. Applied to the original full-resolution pixels, that transform preserves the camera’s fine structure instead of enlarging a low-resolution generated image—and it recovers far richer colour relationships than temperature and tint alone.
Let the automatic result finish before making manual changes. If the overall restoration is too strong, reduce Restoration rather than trying to cancel it with an opposing temperature move.
Treat haze and water as separate jobs
Dehaze is not ordinary contrast. Five Meters builds a spatial transmission estimate, so the control responds to the changing veil across the frame instead of applying the same contrast increase everywhere.[4] Raise it until the subject separates cleanly from the water. Stop before open water darkens unnaturally or particle edges harden into false texture.
The Water controls use a model-derived, feathered water matte so hue, saturation and luminance changes concentrate on likely open-water areas while subjects stay protected. Watch fine edges, blue equipment and reflective fish as you refine—small adjustments usually finish the look.
Finish in a fixed order
Set Exposure while watching bubbles, white fins, surface reflections and lamps. Use Temperature and Tint for a small final bias. Adjust Contrast, Shadows and Blacks only after the colour feels settled, because deeper blacks make colour appear stronger.
Add Vibrance with restraint. Then balance Detail against Noise reduction at 100% view. The harbour-seal example needs enough local contrast to separate the spotted coat from turbid water, but aggressive detail also hardens every suspended particle.
Keep comparing with the original. Finish when the subject and materials separate clearly, not when every part of the water has been neutralised. Blue-green distance, residual haze and limited far detail are part of an underwater photograph—and often the most honest indication of the conditions in which it was made.