How to make water look blue in photos

Picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jemfinch/9323531693/in/set-72157634716075432

Granted, the water looked pretty much like that; I'm mostly asking so I can understand how better to use Lightroom in future edits, when the camera isn't as correct. I couldn't effect any significant change using the HSL sliders; I got some change by brushing on a cooler white balance, but I'm curious what other options I have to make bluer water.

Thanks!

EDIT: I went ahead and uploaded white balance masked version, which my wife likes better.

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I took a bunch of pictures of my daughter the other day, and some came
out beautiful - especially after I had done some cropping and
retouching. But... I don't know what to do with some of them. This
one is a good example. How can I fix the water so that it looks less
swamplike? (I know the framing is a bit off - but I've got a bunch
more with this same nasty water.) How about something more Caribbean?
 
<img src="http://www.bellesphotography.com/images/Review/Lake.jpg"> 
 
Thanks everybody! Oh, and just in case it helps, I'm using Photoshop
version 8.0.
Mike, to me the whole picture looks off. I have tried to balance it to what must have been the
original colors. As you can see the water still looks green but that would be normal under the
cirumstances: green trees reflecting in the water and also a lot of algae in the water itself,
which is probably how it looked in reality. But maybe you are not interested in reality and
want to create a fairy tale? In that case you could replace all elements of the scene at will. Cut
out your daughter along her outer boundaries and the lines of the ledge she's sitting on and
she could even be beautiful in the Himalaya's when you paste a magnificent view behind her.
Here is my crude attempt using the lasso tool in Photoshop Elements 3.0 .
How about this? Sun breaking through over your daughter on a misty day in Holland.
Eric: Okay... well, I'm not necessarily looking for utter fidelity to the original colors if that's what you mean. Here in West Texas everything is pretty much brown. Dead grass, dead trees, muddy water... you get the idea. I thought it would be nice if there was a way in Photoshop to rework the water to a more appealing - yet natural - look. Call it a fantasy, call it art, call it Photoshop trickery... whatever. I'm pretty much a novice (but learning fast) at Photoshop. I thought it was a chance to learn a little more about the potential from you guys that have been doing it for years.
Robert: At least it doesn't look like Swamp-Thing may be lurking behind her anymore. It does make me want to rethink this whole West Texas thing too...
Mike: try selecting the water using a combination of contiguous magic wand and lasso, then create a new adjustment layer, either color balance, hue/saturation, or curves, depending on what you are more familiar with. Then you can adjust the water color to your hearts content without affecting the rest of the picture.
not quite the color it should be....but hue/sat, turned the hue till I got what I wanted. This will color the whole pic....don't worry. Then click ok. Then in the history click back to your previous step in the long rectangle part, then click on your hue conversion in the little box to the left. I history brush icon will pop up in there then. Then click the history brush option in the tool box. Set a relatively small brush with a very wide feather to it. Then take your cursor, which will now be a cirle the size of your brush, and holding donw the alt key paint in the water. I also screwed around with curves to get things there and else where where it looked better.
Globally took out about -7 red in Colour Balance in the highlights. Then selected the water and played around with Selective Colour, mainly the Neutrals and a bit in the Yellows. Lastly selected the trees and bridge and took out about another -5 in the red highlights. Then gave them a -2 shift in Hue in the Hue/Saturation box.
One more with a bit more saturation....
of course, the best solution is probably to not shoot with water in the background. In southern NJ we have "cedar water"...looks like brown tea. Unless the sun is shining exactly at the right angle to light up the brown so it glows.......I avoid it as a background like the plague.
Thanks everybody! I have a lot to play with... Photoshop is incredible, but I feel like I'll never be able to master half of what's possible. I appreciate everyone's feedback. I'll just have to keep trolling the boards and picking up tips here and there... and who knows, maybe one day I'll give up on the whole thing and just move to Holland ;-)
hey mike. is this what you are looking for? bressane | www.pixelretouch.com
The photo's white balance is way off. Easily fixed using adjustment layer of either curves or levels and then using the three eydropper tools to set the shadow, highlight, and midpoint neutrals. Here's my quick attempt.
Assign CIERGB, apply neutral eyedropper in curves to different
areas of the white fence to your satisfaction, apply about -15
saturation in Hue/Saturation tool, convert to sRGB.
Here's my result:
Try another approach, lasso the background and desaturate completely, then add back some sepia to the background which would go nice with the face. The logic is if the background doesn't work very well, then try for another approach altogether.
The color balance is fine. Warm and yellow is how low angled sunlight really looks on a clear day. I rather dislike the auto levels route to color correction as light is rarely white. Instead, it is often slightly blue, slightly yellow, and etcetera. The warm light of early mornings and late afternoons feels so good on the eyes. It definitely beats givng a sickly blue cast to the shadows. That said, I would suggest filling a layer with green (these are not blue waters to my eyes), setting the blending mode to hue, and then painting on the hue using a layer mask. A variant is included. enjoy, Sean
There's some detail I left about the options settings in curve
dialog box that influences the neutral eyedropper tool. I also
came up with a richer version in AdobeRGB that preserves
luminance and left more precise instructions I wrote in the linked
image:
Erik clearly has the best idea! ;-)
Mike, To my eyes the reds are far too high in the image. Open levels (CTRL+L) and start adjusting! Firstly, this is a far simpler way of going about things and secondly, it will give a far more natural look rather than painting the water bright blue. You can always make a few duplicate layers and adjust each individually, (e.g. you may want to up the blues a bit more in the water while keeping a slightly warmer look to your daughter) and then combine the various parts of these afterwards. Obviously everyone will have a slightly different opinion of what looks 'right', at the end of the day it is what you are happy with! Matt
Interesting that 8-9 of 12 corrections show different-color water
to the left and right of the porch-post, which to my eye looks worse
than the original. Kudos to Frank Dzambic for not doing this,
although I prefer Bill Fouche's version otherwise.
Convert to LAB mode and add an adjustment layer of curves. Invert the "B" channel in the curves dialog box (What was blue is now yellow, what was yellow is now blue). Click Ok. Since you are now working in the layer mask of the adjustment layer, paint with black to hide the effect. Flatten and convert back to RGB. Furhter questions drop me a note. Will Adobe CTT Photoshop
lAB & selective colour - That's a new one for me Will. Many thanks
I agree that the white balanace is a little off. But I looks like you are starting from a pretty
murky little pond, so that won't fix everything.
Its not perfect, but here's my 5 minute attempt. First, I moved the white balance a little
away from red. I have a blue-gray gradient color blended into the water (with mid
opacity), a blue-green filter (again, with a lower opacity) color blended over the entire
image (but with your daughter and the rest of the foreground masked out) to simulate
reflectance from the now blue-ish water. I might have toyed with the saturation level of
the water after that. Its all pretty subtle, but if you start attempting to create turquoise
pools, you are going to spend the rest of your life simulating reflectance in the rest of the
image, else its just going to look fake. Instead be happy that you have a normal pond
instead of a green swamp.
actually bill, the water is a different shade of brown in the original post on each side of her, so I left it. I do however completely admit that my choice of blue sucks....Mike can adjust that to taste...I was really just showing a use of painting with a history brush. Definitely less destructive than the lasso, magic wand scenarios. One question I do have though, seeing as Emre showed up.....is my histogram brush method more, less, or the same as doing the same basic thing in layers/brush painting. I've seen comments on the web that both are actually about the same as far as image degradation goes.
anyone know for sure?
Sorry guys, I haven't seen a really decent version yet. I would consider converting to b/w and burn the background (which is distracting with a bridge going through her head as well as being too busy). Burning down would solve a lot of the backdrop issues, and the portrait would pop out at yu.
Personally I like the original colours. But I had a quick go at it anyway, (using The GIMP, as I have no decent alternative). Restricting myself to the original image, and using just a mask and the colour balance tool I got this. This is as blue as I can get it without it looking very unnatural. I can't decide if it is any better than the previous attempts (excluding Erik's), so I might as well submit it.
I happen to have lived in different parts of Texas now residing in
the hill country of central Texas. I know the colors the waters can
get due to all the cattle fecal runoff that causes the familiar mud
green to blue green algae bloom.
Some parks add blue green dye to tint such ugly looking water,
but that shot has a noticeable white point mismatch that
exaggerates the mud look.
And contrary to what others have said, the sun is at approx. 30
degree postion off the horizon and will still have at least a neutral
cast if not 5000K.
Thomas, what you are doing is effectively the same as using a mask on an adjustment layer... and you mean History Brush, not histogram brush
I think most people are missing the point about this photograph,the colour is just fine.The value of any colour (Kelvins) varies fo different locations around the wolrd and different times of day.Should the post be white or cream? only Mike knows.To change the water colour you have to create a mask or selection,on an image like this I would use the path tool (take about 2 mins.) lots more ways of doing it of course up to you however on this image do not use the wand tool.Once you have a selection copy it to a new layer (ctl.+J). Now you can play with all the different colour methods to change it, you can also experiment with different layer blends and layer opacities to fine tune.
I think some of these look pretty good. like Frank Dzambic, Bill Fouche, Matt H, etc. It's always hard to take something natural, even if not pretty, and change it and keep it natural looking. Small files react differently to changes than do larger files. Same with different file types like PSD JPG TIFF etc..
With that said here is my effort, such as it is. Every time I look at it I change it. Some pictures are like that. Scratching my head and muttering to myself.
Terry
Now let's see if somebody can put a graceful swan in the sludge.
Go the whole way and make it some flamingos and tinge the lake pink.
I happened upon this page entirely by accident. 
And because I'm feeling like a helpful person today (and sort of artistic), I decided to play with this photo. It's a beautiful portrait! 
So here's my edit:<br.
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v692/progi/littlegirl.jpg">
 
I didn't do the most precise job ever, but you get the overall idea I think. Just think foreground, background, etc. Making layers, adjusting the color balance, and using a soft brush with the erase tool works wonders. Hope you like!
Oh, and here's another quick edit of that last photo -- just playing with light/color levels: 
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v692/progi/littlegirl2.jpg"> 
Really, I just wanted the colors to be a little more realistic, but you can easily adjust levels and hue from here.