How to Fix Overly Blue Waterfalls in Photoshop

If you like to shoot waterfalls, you've likely noticed that they often have a distinct blueness to them, whereas you likely desire them to be white, as they normally look to the naked eye. This quick tutorial will show you exactly how to remove the blue from waterfalls and restore them to their original shade. 

Coming to you from f64 Academy, this helpful video will show you two effective methods for removing blue from waterfalls (or flowing water). There's certainly nothing wrong with it, and it can be used for effect, but often, you'll prefer an image without it. While using Camera Raw in either Photoshop or Lightroom will do the job just fine, if you have blue in your images elsewhere, using a global adjustment isn't going to fly. That's where an HSL adjustment layer saves the day. I generally prefer using these anyway; it's a minimal amount of extra effort, and you can easily brush in the effect where you see fit. Often, there's a little bit of a certain color hiding in other areas of the image, and you may not notice that you've affected it with a global adjustment, so I prefer to be safe rather than sorry. 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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