Underwater Fauna

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Underwater Fauna is a free Lightroom preset specially designed for marine photography. It illuminates underwater scenes and accentuates cool tones like aqua and blue. Its thorough settings bring out the true colors of fishes, corals, and other marine life.

Contents hide

Brings Out the Ocean Hues

Brightens and Retains Depth

Draws Out the Colors of Marine Life

Applies Thorough Adjustments in Saturation and Luminance

Underwater Fauna is for Lightroom Mobile, Desktop and…

Collection: Ocean Presets, Nature Presets
Best for: Underwater Photos
Style: Brilliant, Clear, Vibrant Detailed

With this preset, you can more accurately depict the beautiful reefs and creatures you encounter when diving or snorkeling. It, after all, takes into consideration the lighting conditions underwater and enhances it. Try it on your existing underwater photos and see them come to life. This preset looks stunning, too, as an aqua filter for your Instagram feed.

Brings Out the Ocean Hues

Ocean Hues. Underwater Fauna first sets the color motif of this preset. It has to underscore the fact that the photo was shot underwater, and also draw out as much color and detail. To do this, it lowers the color temperature of the photo; the bluish hue accentuates the underwater environment. To complement this effect, the preset also adds a soft layer of green tint.

Underwater Fauna makes its entire look coherent by also adding some subtle colors to the highlights and shadows. It adds some brown tones to highlights and aqua tones to shadows. You can examine the result in the photo above of a jellyfish. You can see the tint and temperature in the background, and the split toning on the jellyfish itself.

Brightens and Retains Depth

A white and brilliant jellyfish underwater

Illuminated. In the photo above, notice how the entire jellyfish looks illuminated. This isn’t because of a mere increase in exposure; to retain the depth and to more accurately adjust the brightness of tones, Underwater Fauna instead tweaks the whites, highlights, and shadows. It brightens all these tones and more finely tempers the highlight in the tone curve.

Because of these settings, the preset is optimized for various underwater scenes. If your shots also feature the warm tones of beaches, you can explore more of our free ocean Lightroom presets.

Draws Out the Colors of Marine Life

Colorful Dive. We all know how difficult it is to capture the actual colors of marine life when shooting underwater. The deficiency of light, among other factors, dulls hues most of the time.

This Underwater Fauna preset resolves this problem by amplifying colors by boosting contrast, clarity, and vibrance, at varying degrees. It also applies a medium contrast tone curve to more precisely set the intensity. You can easily see the result in the sea anemones of the above image.

Here are more recommendations if you like this look. Try our vibrant ocean preset if you want something that’s close to a light and airy aesthetic. If you are looking for a similar vibrant look for your nature shots on land, I suggest you check out our preset for flowers. This one has rich colors and attractive brilliance. You can also use our animal Lightroom preset if you are going for a more detailed style.

Applies Thorough Adjustments in Saturation and Luminance

A woman viewing a vast aquarium in an ocean park

Refined Colors. To reinforce the underwater look and complement the applied tint and temperature, the preset increases the saturation of yellow, green, aqua, and blue colors. As a result, the colors pop more, almost cinematic, as you would see in nature documentaries.

A vibrant blue photo of a diver behind a Manta Ray

Bright and Clear. It also makes the water look even more illuminated by heightening the luminance of blue and aqua hues. You can easily notice the result in the example above. Note how brighter the seawater looks in the After photo, and how it has some light shades of aqua.