GoPro underwater color correction, without the red filter
Straight out of a GoPro, every dive looks blue. This free browser tool measures how much red the water took and puts it back, frame by frame – for HERO 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and MAX footage up to 5.3K, including 10-bit. No upload, no account.
Why GoPro dive footage is blue
Water absorbs red light first: by about five metres almost no red reaches the sensor, by ten metres orange is gone, by twenty metres yellow. The GoPro's automatic white balance tries to compensate, but it can only balance what it recorded. The result is the familiar blue-green haze with grey corals and dark, muddy skin tones.
A red filter adds a fixed amount of red in front of the lens. That is right for one depth and wrong for every other, which is why filter footage looks magenta near the surface and still blue at depth.
What the tool does instead
- Measures every frame. It estimates how much red (and, in green water, blue) is missing and compensates per pixel, then balances the channels and stretches contrast – with temporal smoothing so nothing flickers.
- Detects the scene. Open water, reef, close-up, green water, night or hazy snorkelling water each get their own preset. You can override it, most people never do.
- Keeps your file intact. Audio is copied unchanged, the output is a normal MP4 next to the original, and nothing leaves your computer.
GoPro settings that help
| Setting | Recommendation | Why |
|---|---|---|
| White balance | Auto, or 5500K | Auto is fine – the tool re-balances anyway. Avoid "Native" unless you grade in a LUT workflow. |
| Color | Natural (HERO 10+) or GoPro | Less baked-in saturation gives the correction more to work with. |
| Bit depth | 10-bit if available | Smoother gradients after the red channel is stretched. Supported directly. |
| Resolution / fps | 4K60 or 5.3K30 | Both are processed at full resolution. 4K60 runs close to real time on a laptop with hardware decoding. |
| Red filter | Leave it off | Software correction per frame beats one fixed filter; stacking both over-corrects. |
| HyperSmooth | On | Stabilisation is unaffected by the correction. |
How to correct a whole dive
- Copy the MP4 files from the GoPro (or the GoPro Quik export) to your computer.
- Open the app in Chrome or Edge and drop the files in – a whole dive at once is fine.
- Check the detected scene next to each file, pick an output folder and press Start.
- Files are saved as GH010291_corrected.mp4 next to the originals, ready for Quik, Premiere, Resolve or straight to Instagram.
Full walkthrough with screenshots: the step-by-step guide.
Frequently asked
Does it work with GoPro MAX and 360 footage?
Reframed MP4 exports from GoPro Quik or Player work like any other clip. The raw .360 file must be exported first.
Can it fix footage recorded with a red filter?
Usually yes – pick the Reef or Blue water scene and lower Strength to 60–80 %. Heavily magenta filter footage is harder to recover than unfiltered footage.
Is 5.3K supported?
Yes. Output above 4K is encoded as HEVC; 4K and below as H.264. Both are processed at the original resolution.
Does it keep the GoPro telemetry (GPS, gyro)?
No. The video and audio tracks are kept, the telemetry track is not carried over to the corrected file.
What does it cost?
Nothing. The tool is free and processes the video on your own computer. A small dive.nordrift.dk tag is added in the corner by default and can be switched off.