Lightroom 3 introduces several powerful tools for photographers, and among the most valuable for underwater shooters is the lens correction panel. Underwater photography often involves the use of ultra-wide rectilinear and fisheye lenses, which naturally introduce significant distortion to images. Previously, correcting this distortion involved exporting RAW files as TIFFs and processing them further in Photoshop. This was not only time-consuming but also consumed excessive disk space due to multiple file versions. Now, Lightroom offers a non-destructive workflow that allows for distortion correction directly on RAW files. This lets photographers create virtual copies of their images, enabling various edits without taking up extra storage space.
Understanding the Lens Correction Panel
The new lens correction panel is divided into two main sections: the Profile Section and the Manual Section. Each offers unique tools to correct distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting introduced by specific lenses. In the Profile Section, Lightroom attempts to automatically detect the lens used and applies preset corrections accordingly. These corrections are based on lens-specific profiles and can automatically remove barrel distortion, color fringing, and darkened corners.
Lightroom 3 includes built-in profiles for popular lenses from manufacturers such as Canon, Nikon, Sigma, Sony, and Tamron. However, some specialty lenses, like the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye, are not included by default. For such lenses, Adobe provides downloadable target profiles that users can install to enable custom corrections. If Lightroom misidentifies the lens used, you can manually select the correct profile from a dropdown list and fine-tune the adjustments to match your image’s needs.
Working with the Manual Section
The Manual Section in the lens correction panel is especially powerful for underwater photographers who deal with more complex distortion issues. It can be used alone or in combination with the profile corrections. In this section, you can manipulate the distortion manually, adjusting vertical and horizontal perspective, rotating the image, scaling it, and tweaking the lens vignetting and chromatic aberration settings.
One standout feature is the Constrain Crop checkbox. As you correct significant lens distortion, image edges—especially corners—can be lost as Lightroom reshapes the image geometry. Enabling the constrain crop feature ensures that Lightroom crops the image automatically to preserve as much usable area as possible. This crop is non-destructive and can later be altered in the crop and straighten panel, giving photographers full flexibility.
Real-World Use Case: Fisheye Lens Corrections
A practical example helps highlight the strength of Lightroom’s lens correction panel. Consider an underwater image of a cuttlefish taken with a Nikon 10.5mm fisheye lens. While the subject itself is well-composed, the exaggerated curvature caused by the fisheye makes the cuttlefish appear bloated—almost football-shaped. Applying Lightroom’s default correction for the Nikon 10.5mm fisheye lens dramatically straightens the image, preserving its visual appeal while removing the distracting distortion.
Another example involves a photo of oil rigs captured with the Tokina 10-17mm lens. Initially, the vertical structures appear bent due to the lens’s curvature. After applying custom correction settings in Lightroom, the lines of the oil rigs are properly aligned and vertical, offering a more natural perspective.
Refining and Customizing Lens Profiles
In some cases, the default lens correction settings might not fully satisfy a photographer’s creative intent. Lightroom allows for subtle tweaks to each correction parameter. For instance, in the oil rigs example, the user adjusted the distortion correction values beyond the defaults to better fit the architectural lines in the composition. The ability to manually override and fine-tune profile corrections is essential for advanced post-processing.
Photographers can also save their custom settings as new presets, enabling quicker application of frequently used adjustments. This can be especially helpful for underwater photographers who often use the same lenses in similar lighting and depth conditions.
Integrating Lens Correction into the Workflow
For many underwater photographers, the lens correction panel has become a staple part of the editing workflow. Instead of relying on external tools like Photoshop or third-party plug-ins, Lightroom now offers a streamlined, fully integrated solution. This speeds up the editing process, reduces storage overhead, and enhances creative control. With the ability to work directly on RAW files and maintain image quality, Lightroom’s lens correction becomes not just a convenience, but a critical asset in underwater photo editing.
Lens Distortion in Underwater Photography
Underwater photography is uniquely susceptible to lens distortion due to the optics of water, glass, and the wide-angle or fisheye lenses commonly used to capture large scenes in limited visibility. Water magnifies and bends light differently than air, which introduces even more visual distortions than on land. This makes accurate lens correction essential to achieve true-to-life representations of subjects, whether it’s marine life, divers, coral formations, or submerged architecture.
Fisheye lenses are particularly popular for underwater use because they allow the photographer to get very close to the subject while still capturing a wide field of view. This proximity is critical to reduce backscatter, improve sharpness, and ensure good exposure. However, the barrel distortion introduced by these lenses can create a surreal or warped effect, especially along the edges of the frame. Lightroom’s lens correction panel is capable of identifying and correcting this distortion while maintaining important image detail and contrast.
How the Profile Section Works Underwater
When you import your image into Lightroom and enable the lens correction profile section, the software automatically attempts to identify the lens used by reading metadata embedded in the RAW file. If the lens has a prebuilt profile, Lightroom will then apply corrections for distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. This auto-correction is incredibly useful when working with predictable distortion patterns, such as those caused by rectilinear wide-angle lenses.
For underwater photographers, the automatic application of profiles is a time-saving measure. Many lenses like the Nikon 16-35mm, Canon 17-40mm, and Sigma 10-20mm have robust profiles that Lightroom recognizes instantly. However, when using housings, dome ports, and extensions, additional aberrations may be introduced, which profiles do not account for. In such cases, Lightroom’s corrections should be used as a starting point rather than a final step. Photographers can then go on to tweak the image manually in the manual section.
Adobe’s lens profiles are regularly updated, and users are also given the option to create their custom profiles using a calibration chart and target tool available from Adobe. This is especially important for lenses like the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye, which is widely used by underwater photographers but not supported by default. Creating a custom profile allows you to achieve more precise corrections that reflect your unique shooting conditions.
Correcting Chromatic Aberration in Underwater Images
Chromatic aberration occurs when a lens fails to focus all colors at the same convergence point. This results in colored fringes—often red, green, blue, or purple—along high-contrast edges, especially in the corners of images. Underwater, this problem is magnified due to the different ways light behaves beneath the surface. A reef edge illuminated by a strobe can produce visible fringing along edges where coral meets open water, or where a diver’s fins contrast against the blue background.
Lightroom’s lens correction panel offers a checkbox labeled “Remove Chromatic Aberration” that does an excellent job with one click. It identifies color fringing and attempts to neutralize it by desaturating the fringe zones. For more control, users can switch to the Manual Lens Correction tab, where they’ll find color sliders allowing precise targeting of fringe hues and their locations on the image.
This feature is particularly helpful for photographers who shoot with third-party lenses or use extension tubes, wet lenses, or ports that are not factory-matched to the camera system. These accessories can introduce slight misalignments in the optical path, leading to chromatic fringing. With Lightroom, these imperfections can be corrected quickly during post-processing, allowing the final image to appear cleaner and more refined.
Vignetting in Underwater Photography and How to Fix It
Vignetting is another common problem for underwater photographers, especially when shooting wide open or at the lens’s widest focal lengths. It appears as darkening around the edges of the image and is often caused by the physical limits of the lens design, underwater housing, or dome port placement.
In underwater scenes, vignetting can be distracting, especially if it draws attention away from the subject or creates unwanted mood shifts in lighting. Lightroom’s Lens Vignetting Correction is included in both the profile and manual correction sections. If a known lens profile is selected, Lightroom will automatically apply correction based on manufacturer data. However, for fine-tuning or unsupported lenses, the manual sliders allow photographers to adjust both the Amount (how bright the corners become) and the Midpoint (how far the vignette reaches into the frame).
This is particularly useful when you want to correct only partial vignetting caused by wet lens adapters, stacking filters, or non-standard port extensions. If used creatively, this same tool can be used to add vignetting—helping guide the viewer’s eye toward the subject in the center of the frame while maintaining a natural underwater ambiance.
Using the Manual Section for Creative Corrections
Beyond correcting for lens-specific flaws, the manual section offers creative freedom in reshaping an image’s geometry. This includes:
Distortion – Use this slider to straighten barrel (bulging) or pincushion (sinking) effects. This is often required for fisheye images where straight architectural lines or fish bodies need to look more natural.
Vertical – Adjusts the tilt of the image along the vertical axis. Ideal for correcting scenes where the camera was pointed slightly upward or downward.
Horizontal – Adjusts the image perspective side-to-side. This is helpful when the camera wasn’t aligned perfectly parallel to a structure like a wreck wall or pier post.
Rotate – This simple but crucial tool allows you to correct uneven horizons, a common challenge when shooting freehand underwater.
Scale – This can resize the image after distortion corrections, allowing you to fill the frame more effectively or reduce the impact of cropped-out areas.
Constrain Crop – When you apply these manual corrections, the resulting image can contain warped corners or blank space. Enabling this option will crop the image automatically to remove those non-image areas while maximizing visible content.
These tools allow underwater photographers to reclaim control over the scene’s geometry and make images look more intentional and balanced. Even subtle corrections can make a significant difference in how professional and composed an image appears.
Practical Workflow Integration
Integrating lens correction into your Lightroom workflow doesn’t have to be complicated. Many professionals choose to apply basic lens corrections during the Import or Library module using Develop Presets. This ensures all imported images receive the same base corrections consistently. You can create your own preset that includes enabling profile corrections, removing chromatic aberration, and applying a slight vignette correction if needed. This speeds up your culling and editing process and allows you to focus your energy on artistic enhancements.
Here’s a sample workflow:
Import RAW files into Lightroom.
Apply a custom import preset that includes lens correction settings.
Review each image in the Develop Module.
For images needing extra correction, open the Manual section to fine-tune perspective and distortion.
Enable Constrain Crop for optimal framing.
Apply other adjustments like exposure, white balance, clarity, and color correction.
Export to your desired format for web, print, or client delivery.
By making lens correction a standard step early in your workflow, you ensure higher-quality edits throughout your post-processing pipeline. This also reduces the risk of wasting time editing an image that will later need cropping or geometric correction that could’ve been handled upfront.
Summary of Tools in the Lens Correction Panel
To summarize, Lightroom’s lens correction panel offers a wide array of features that can dramatically improve the quality and professionalism of underwater images. These include:
Profile-based distortion correction based on lens metadata.
Automatic and manual chromatic aberration removal.
Automatic and adjustable vignetting correction.
Manual adjustments for geometric distortion, perspective, and rotation.
Constrain Crop functionality for seamless framing after transformations.
Lightroom’s non-destructive editing environment ensures that every adjustment is reversible and customizable, giving photographers peace of mind while exploring various correction options.
Advanced Control Through Custom Lens Profiles
While Lightroom’s built-in lens profiles cover many popular lenses, underwater photographers frequently use specialized optics that do not have dedicated profiles. These include fisheye lenses, wet diopters, dome ports, and even macro lenses with extension tubes or adapters. The interaction between these accessories and camera optics often produces unique distortion and color shift characteristics that generic profiles cannot accurately correct.
Creating custom lens profiles allows photographers to overcome these challenges. Adobe offers a Lens Profile Creator Tool, which generates custom correction profiles based on images of a printed calibration chart taken with the lens at various focal lengths and apertures. By photographing the chart under controlled lighting and then analyzing those images through the Profile Creator, Lightroom can produce a profile tailored to that specific lens configuration.
For underwater use, this process can be more complex due to the impossibility of shooting calibration charts underwater. However, some photographers create dry profiles and later tweak them for underwater conditions using a reference workflow. Others photograph test charts in a controlled underwater environment such as a pool, carefully accounting for lighting and depth-related aberrations.
Once created, these custom profiles can be imported into Lightroom and applied to relevant images via the Profile tab in the Lens Corrections panel. This provides a powerful way to correct distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting that otherwise would remain unaddressed by standard tools.
Using Virtual Copies for Comparative Edits
One of Lightroom’s strengths is its ability to create Virtual Copies—non-destructive duplicates of a photo that allow you to apply different adjustments or edits without duplicating the original file on your drive. For underwater photographers using lens correction, this is invaluable. You may want to experiment with different levels of correction, crop ratios, or creative effects while preserving the original image state.
For example, a fisheye image of a diver swimming past coral may look great with the full fisheye effect, preserving that curved, immersive look. However, a second version using lens correction can straighten the image for a more documentary-style aesthetic. With Virtual Copies, you can develop both versions side by side, export each, and compare them for different purposes—marketing, scientific documentation, or social media publishing.
To create a virtual copy, simply right-click on an image in Lightroom and select “Create Virtual Copy.” Then apply your lens correction settings independently to each version. You can rename or flag these copies for organization, ensuring each edit is preserved in your creative workflow.
Perspective Correction in Underwater Architecture and Wrecks
One of the most practical uses of manual lens correction tools is in shooting underwater structures, wrecks, ruins, and piers. These scenes often involve complex geometries that should ideally retain straight lines and right angles. However, wide-angle lenses distort these shapes, bending pillars or skewing beams unnaturally.
Using the Vertical and Horizontal sliders in the Manual section, photographers can realign these structures. The Rotate and Distortion sliders help balance image symmetry, especially when the original shot was taken off-axis. Additionally, the Scale slider helps fill the frame after significant adjustments have altered the image boundaries.
Let’s consider a photo of an underwater airplane wreck. Taken at a low angle with a fisheye lens, the fuselage curves, and the tail fin appears to lean unnaturally. By applying both profile-based correction and manual vertical adjustments, the photographer can bring these elements back into accurate proportions. This not only improves visual realism but enhances compositional impact, making lines and angles work in favor of the image’s storytelling.
Creative Applications of Lens Correction
Although lens correction is typically used to fix distortion, it can also be a creative tool. Underwater photographers can selectively apply correction to exaggerate or minimize spatial relationships between subjects. For example, removing fisheye distortion from a portrait of a turtle may make it appear flatter and more lifelike, ideal for publication or identification. Conversely, preserving slight curvature might add dramatic emphasis for artistic effect.
Another creative use involves blending corrected and uncorrected versions of the same image in Photoshop. By exporting one version with lens correction and another without, photographers can mask between the two to retain desired aspects from each. This technique allows preservation of edge detail or lighting effects in specific image areas while improving geometry in others.
Using Lightroom in this way transforms lens correction from a basic fix into a compositional enhancement tool. Photographers can redefine the mood, tension, and balance of their underwater scenes with subtle choices made in the correction panel.
Dealing with Port and Housing Artifacts
Even the most advanced lenses will perform differently once placed in an underwater housing. Dome ports introduce optical distortion, edge blurring, and reflections, especially when improperly aligned. Flat ports used for macro can also cause unwanted magnification and corner softness.
Lens correction helps to mitigate some of these issues. For instance, vignetting from tight dome shades or strobe arms can be lifted using the vignetting slider. Optical distortion introduced by the curved dome can often be reduced by adjusting the distortion manually. However, not all artifacts can be fixed digitally—particularly those caused by water droplets, poor alignment, or degraded coatings.
When using wet lenses—macro diopters, wide-angle adapters, or conversion lenses—the resulting images may require a combination of custom profiles and hands-on editing. Lightroom’s flexibility supports this kind of nuanced adjustment, where standard workflows fall short. Developing a set of correction presets for each lens/port combo in your gear bag will save time and increase output consistency.
Batch Editing with Lens Correction
One of Lightroom’s biggest strengths is its ability to edit photos in bulk. For underwater photographers who shoot in bursts or cover entire dive expeditions, this is essential. Once you’ve established lens correction settings that work for a particular lens, port, and shooting condition, you can synchronize those settings across an entire shoot.
Here’s how to implement this workflow:
Edit one representative photo using profile and manual lens correction tools.
Copy the settings using the “Copy” button or shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+C).
Select the remaining images and click “Paste” (Ctrl+Shift+V) or use the “Sync” button.
Review images individually to make any minor tweaks, especially for shots at different focal lengths or angles.
This method ensures consistent corrections and helps you finish edits faster. It’s particularly useful for photographers who shoot with a limited lens setup and repeat similar compositions across dives. By building a library of lens correction presets for different environments (reefs, wrecks, caves), you can streamline your post-processing to a professional level.
Troubleshooting Lens Correction Artifacts
Despite Lightroom’s sophistication, lens correction can introduce its challenges. Overcorrection may cause unnatural stretching or compressing of elements, especially if manual sliders are pushed too far. Automatic profiles sometimes misinterpret metadata, especially when images are cropped in-camera or shot using older firmware.
To avoid these issues:
Start with subtle corrections and gradually increase intensity.
Always enable Constrain Crop to avoid empty borders unless you plan to crop manually.
If Lightroom misidentifies your lens, manually select the correct make and model.
Be cautious with chromatic aberration sliders—overuse can desaturate key details.
Recheck alignment after rotation or perspective changes. Use the crop overlay grid (press “R”) to help guide vertical and horizontal lines.
Keep virtual copies for each major revision so you can compare and revert easily.
By treating Lightroom lens correction as an iterative process rather than a one-click solution, you’ll maintain full creative control over your final image while maximizing technical quality.
Exporting Corrected Images for Web and Print
Once corrections are applied, exporting your images requires special attention. Corrected images may have altered dimensions due to cropping, which can affect how they appear online or in print. It’s important to double-check image resolution, size, and composition during the export phase.
For web export:
Use sRGB color space to ensure consistency across browsers.
Set output sharpening to “Standard” or “High” for screen, depending on image softness after correction.
Maintain aspect ratio when resizing and ensure final crops are free of empty borders.
For print export:
Export in Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB for wider color gamut.
Apply minimal output sharpening for paper type (glossy, matte).
Check that lens corrections didn’t alter the subject proportion unnaturally.
When submitting images to clients, publications, or competitions, include a note about corrections made. Transparency about lens adjustments helps maintain ethical standards, especially in scientific or documentary contexts.
The Role of Lens Correction in Image Authenticity
In underwater photography, maintaining authenticity while enhancing image quality is a fine balance. Lens correction walks the line between factual representation and artistic interpretation. For scientific documentation, such as marine biology or reef surveys, removing lens distortion ensures spatial relationships are preserved and subjects are accurately depicted.
In creative photography, however, the choice to apply or avoid correction can be stylistic. The curvature of a fisheye lens might be desirable for visual drama or emotional tone. It’s up to the photographer to decide whether correction enhances or diminishes the intended impact.
Lightroom’s non-destructive workflow supports this freedom. You can produce multiple versions of the same image—corrected and uncorrected—and choose the right one for each purpose. This ensures technical quality never compromises your artistic or narrative goals.
Expert Workflow Integration for Professionals
Underwater photography demands efficiency without sacrificing quality. Professional photographers often return from dives with hundreds or even thousands of images, each needing review and post-processing. Integrating lens correction into a fast, repeatable workflow ensures consistent results while saving time.
An expert workflow might include the following:
Import photos into Lightroom with a custom-developed preset that automatically applies your most-used lens correction profile.
Filter through images using star ratings or color labels to identify those worth editing further.
Move selected images into the Develop module and review each for additional correction needs. This includes verifying that the profile used is accurate and tweaking any manual distortion, vignetting, or chromatic aberration controls.
Use the Constrain Crop option to preserve the strongest composition after correction.
Apply batch syncing to groups of images shot under similar conditions, such as depth, lighting, or lens settings.
Create Virtual Copies if you want to compare a corrected version against the original artistic vision, especially for wide-angle or fisheye compositions.
This approach ensures lens correction becomes a background habit rather than a time-consuming distraction. Over time, experienced photographers build a muscle memory for identifying which images need which level of correction, allowing them to move quickly through even large sets.
Presets for Different Shooting Environments
Preset creation is one of Lightroom’s most powerful tools, especially when it comes to lens correction. Instead of starting from scratch with each image, photographers can save frequently used correction settings as custom presets.
For example:
A preset for shallow reef shooting with a Nikon 10.5mm fisheye lens and dome port.
A preset for macro shooting using a Canon 100mm lens with a flat port and +10 wet diopter.
A preset for wide-angle wreck photography at depth with strobes and minimal ambient light.
Each preset can include not only lens correction settings but also additional edits like contrast, clarity, and sharpening tuned for that specific environment. This layered preset strategy speeds up editing and ensures consistency across similar dive conditions.
Presets can also be organized by camera body, dive site, water clarity, or depth range. Some professionals even create seasonal variations—accounting for changes in water color and light direction at different times of year.
Optimizing for Client Deliverables
When delivering images to clients—magazines, marine biologists, travel agencies, or conservation groups—lens correction is essential for maintaining technical credibility. Clients may expect straight horizons, undistorted marine life, and true-to-nature representations. Applying thoughtful corrections increases the perceived quality and professionalism of the images delivered.
Here are the best practices for preparing corrected images for clients:
Ensure that lens corrections match the intended use of the image (e.g., documentary, editorial, creative).
Include both corrected and uncorrected versions where relevant, especially for clients who might want the original capture data.
Use file naming conventions to indicate corrected files, such as adding “_corr” to the filename.
Include metadata about the lens used and correction settings if the image will be used for scientific purposes or technical publications.
Export files in formats and resolutions suited to their final destination (print, web, social media, etc.).
Providing images that are technically accurate and visually polished reinforces trust with clients and ensures long-term relationships and repeat work.
Limitations and When Not to Use Lens Correction
Despite its power, lens correction is not always the right choice. Over-reliance on automated corrections can occasionally degrade image quality or strip away the unique visual characteristics of certain compositions. Some photographers purposely embrace the visual curve of a fisheye lens to achieve a sense of scale, motion, or intimacy in their underwater scenes.
There are also limitations to what Lightroom can correct. Distortions introduced by scratched domes, water droplets on ports, or severe edge blurring often require more advanced solutions, such as Photoshop layer masking or compositing. Furthermore, lens correction in Lightroom cannot compensate for fundamental shooting errors, such as poor composition, focus issues, or overexposure.
In creative contexts, retaining the natural distortion of a lens can be more compelling than correcting it. For example, the curvature of a school of fish surrounding a diver might visually benefit from an untouched fisheye image. The key is knowing when correction helps—and when it interferes with the image’s impact.
Comparing Lightroom with Other Correction Tools
Lightroom is not the only platform offering lens correction. Tools like DxO PhotoLab, Capture One, and Photoshop also provide distortion control, each with unique strengths. DxO, for instance, is known for its optical modules, which are specifically tailored to camera and lens combinations, often providing more nuanced correction than Lightroom’s generic profiles.
Photoshop offers more flexibility in terms of geometric transformation, allowing for pixel-level corrections that go beyond Lightroom’s sliders. Capture One is favored by many studio photographers for its tethering and color controls, though its lens correction tools are less intuitive for casual users.
The advantage of Lightroom remains its balance of power and accessibility. Its workflow-first design and non-destructive architecture make it ideal for busy underwater shooters who want to correct distortion quickly and get back to editing, printing, or publishing.
Anticipating Future Developments in Lens Correction
As camera and lens technology evolves, so too will correction software. Future versions of Lightroom are likely to include AI-assisted lens correction, where machine learning models are trained on massive datasets of underwater images to identify distortion patterns and automatically correct them—even for unsupported lenses.
Camera metadata may become more detailed, allowing Lightroom to more accurately read dome port size, underwater housing configuration, and even GPS-tagged dive depth to better inform correction parameters. Real-time lens correction previews in the camera or tethered capture software may allow photographers to shoot more precisely with fewer post-processing steps.
We may also see community-driven lens correction profiles, where divers around the world upload corrections based on their specific gear setups. These shared resources could greatly expand Lightroom’s capability to handle the wide diversity of underwater photographic equipment.
The Psychological Impact of Lens Correction
On a more abstract level, correcting distortion can affect how viewers emotionally respond to an image. Straight lines feel stable and trustworthy, while curved or distorted elements can feel chaotic or otherworldly. By choosing how and when to apply correction, underwater photographers control the psychological tone of their images.
A wreck with straightened beams appears more majestic and solid. A coral reef without an optical bulge appears more natural and peaceful. In contrast, leaving slight distortion in an action shot of a shark charging the camera might amplify the sense of tension and motion.
Understanding this deeper layer of impact empowers photographers to move beyond technical fixes into the realm of visual storytelling. Lens correction is no longer just about straightening lines—it’s about shaping narrative.
Conclusion
Lightroom’s lens correction panel is an essential tool for underwater photographers seeking to elevate their images from raw captures to polished masterpieces. It offers a powerful blend of automated ease and manual precision, making it suitable for both beginner divers and seasoned professionals. By correcting distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting, photographers can enhance clarity, realism, and emotional impact.
Whether you’re documenting marine biodiversity, capturing a diver exploring a sunken wreck, or telling a visual story about ocean conservation, the lens correction tools in Lightroom help bring underwater images closer to how the eye—or the heart—remembers them.
Lens correction is more than a technical fix. It is a creative decision. Each slider represents a choice: to clarify, to distort, to enhance, or to preserve. Through thoughtful application, Lightroom empowers photographers to harness the full potential of their underwater vision.