It’s normal this time of year to ask, “What did you do for your vacation?”
Yesterday I ran into Adobe’s Bill Stotzner and he told me he took Lightroom underwater for his vacation. Let me explain.

Bill is a member of the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom team, and he is an avid underwater photographer as well. Last month, for vacation, he went with Optiquatics to the Channel Islands, off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. Optiquatics organizes trips targeted to introduce and develop underwater photography skills. Everyone who joined Bill is an avid underwater photographer and Bill says there were at least 10 laptops on board loaded with, yes, Photoshop Lightroom.

Even though Bill was on vacation, he couldn’t help lending a helping hand. Most popular Lighroom tool, according to Bill: the Develop module’s Clarity tool. The Clarity tool”, explains Bill, works with midtone contrast, and in underwater photography that is where most of the detail is found.”

Biggest complaint from the underwater photographers using Lightroom? You can’t turn off the visibility of the Spot Removal target/source indicators when cleaning up backscatter. (Backscatter occurs when the underwater flash strikes suspended particulates in the water. It makes it look as if dust covered the shot.)

“When 5 or more target/source indicators fill the screen,” continues Bill, “many users find it annoying and they want to make the indicators—or “dumbbells” as we call them because of their shape—go away without exiting the tool.”

Well, they are complaining to the right guy. I’d put my money on some kind of Spot Removal off/on switch in the next rev of Lightroom. It’s a safe bet.

BTW, Bill will be discussing Lightroom and underwater photography at the Northern California Underwater Photographic Society (NCUPS) meeting on September 14th, at 7pm in Millbrae, California. For more information click here.