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Wham! Pow! Bang! BackscatterXTerminator has come to save your images!
 

Ask an underwater photographer what the bane of his or her existence is, and chances are that “backscatter” will likely be a frequent answer. One of the great skills in underwater photography is minimizing backscatter in your images to begin with and many an hour are spent in Photoshop or Lightroom cleaning it up.

Unlike many people, backscatter in pictures doesn’t bother me all that much. Sure, I’ll clean up some bits and pieces here and there, but for the most part, backscatter in my pictures goes untouched. However, when post-processing wizard Erin Quigley of GoAskErin.com teased a brand new Photoshop plugin called BackscatterXTerminator (BSXT), I couldn’t help but be intrigued—the software promises to banish backscatter with a “single click”! The plugin uses technology created by software engineer Russell Croman, the founder of RC Astro, a company that develops image-processing tools for improving astrophotography. BSXT is a variation of RC Astro’s StarXTerminator, which is designed to remove stars from deep space images.

I will preface this by saying that “single click” is not intended to suggest that’s all it takes to produce a finished image; a “single click” is what’s needed to run the built-in action that creates two layers, a layer mask, renames the layers, runs the BSXT filter, selects the Brush Tool, and sets black as the foreground color. That one click does indeed remove most backscatter from most images, but to truly maximize the effectiveness of the software, some knowledge of other Photoshop tools is necessary, or at the very least, highly beneficial. Erin herself adds the disclaimer on her website that the plugin doesn’t produce perfect results on its own—but helpfully, the in-depth tutorial available alongside the software lays out specific steps to further fine-tune the final image if BSXT doesn't perform flawlessly.

BackscatterXTerminator works best early in the editing process, so I ran it exclusively on RAW files before any other adjustments. The images featured here are untouched beyond running BSXT. Interestingly, resolution of the original file does not seem to have any sort of impact on the software’s success. The pictures here are 12, 16, or 24 megapixels, and no one resolution seems to perform better than the others.
 

BackscatterXTerminator in Use

Polkadot Batfish, Florida, USA
 

OM System OM-1, Olympus 60mm macro lens, AOI housing, dual Backscatter Mini Flash 2 with Optical Snoot, f/11, 1/200s, ISO 80
 

At first glance, the side-by-side looks pretty remarkable: There are just a few small particles left—BackscatterXTerminator did a fantastic job. However, closer inspection reveals that it has also removed quite a lot of the detail on the fish itself, especially the stippling all over its face. In this instance, knowledge of other Photoshop tools is required. By using the masking tool on a separate layer, you can use the brush tool and paint the Xterminator off of the fish itself to bring back the details. All you have left to do after that is to remove a few final bits of scatter, which is easy to do and significantly faster than having to go through and get rid of all that particulate one piece at a time!
 

Moving the slider back and forth, it becomes evident that BSXT has removed much of the fine details on the face of the batfish. Fortunately, with some Photoshop knowledge, those details are easy enough to paint back in

Goliath Grouper, Florida, USA
 

Sony a7S III, Nikonos RS 13mm fisheye lens, Isotta housing, dual Kraken KR-S160 strobes, f/10, 1/25s, ISO 250
 

Lots of the fine particles were easily eliminated by BackscatterXTerminator, but many of the larger bits were left, which strikes me as a bit odd, as you would think they should be picked up by the plugin. Regardless, the remaining backscatter is easily removed using Photoshop’s Spot Healing Brush tool. Most importantly, in this instance, the fish itself was not touched and all the details were retained.
 

BSXT left the goliath grouper entirely alone. It did not remove any details nor “plasticize” the fish

Striated Frogfish, Florida, USA
 

Sony a7S III, Sony 90mm macro lens, Isotta housing, Nauticam EMWL, dual Retra Flash strobes, f/16, 1/160s, ISO 100
 

Here’s another example that worked very well, would save lots of time on backscatter removal, and thankfully did not touch the subject. I am still not entirely sure how the software determines what to remove versus what to avoid, as there are some pretty blatant particles that are left over after running the plugin. In any case, they are very easily removed with the Spot Healing Brush tool. Solid color backgrounds I would’ve thought would be significantly easier for the program to work on than busy backgrounds, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. BSXT seems to be equally successful whether the background is a clean, solid color—or not.
 

I was pleasantly surprised by the results here. With other “non-classical looking” fish, BSXT had a tendency to remove details or parts of the fish, but it left this frogfish untouched

Wolffish, Iceland
 

Sony a7S III, Nikonos RS 13mm fisheye lens, Isotta housing, dual Retra Flash Pro Max strobes, f/10, 1/4s, ISO 200
 

BackscatterXTerminator certainly exterminated the backscatter in this picture! This is not a image I’d hang on to, as there’s too much backscatter, even for me, but it is a good example of the power of the plugin. Still, a closer look reveals that not all is as rosy as it looks at first glance. While nearly all the particulate has indeed been removed, a close look at the high-res file shows a rather “plasticky” looking result. The detail has been sucked out of the wolffish and the background is artificially smooth with some undesirable artifacts.

While the overall effect looks quite successful, I think this is actually the least pleasing result of any of the images shown here. It may be that there is simply too much particulate, beyond the capabilities of the software to overcome.
 

While BSXT was wildly successful removing the backscatter from the image, it also removed details from the fish and the catchlight from the eye, making the wolffish look a bit “dead”! It’s another instance when knowledge of Photoshop tools would come in handy to quickly remedy the issue

Florida Gar, Florida, USA
 

Sony a9, Nikonos RS 13mm fisheye lens, Seafrogs housing, dual Kraken KR-S160 strobes, f/8, 1/60s, ISO 800
 

Similarly to the wolffish above, the results of this gar picture look good at first glance but upon closer inspection, the areas of the image where backscatter is removed by the software have a plasticky aesthetic. For sure, this will not be noticeable to many people, but being a bit of a stickler for overall image quality, I did notice this. It’s also an instance when my Photoshop knowledge is not deep enough to know how to amend that without undoing BackscatterXTerminator completely. If viewing online or on a phone screen, nobody would ever notice.
 

BSXT does seem to lend certain images a “plasticky” look. Still, it’s subtle and I’d wager it will largely be unnoticed by most people

Silky Sharks, Florida, USA
 

Sony a7S III, Nikonos RS 13mm fisheye lens, Isotta housing, dual Kraken KR-S160 strobes, f/3.5, 1/250s, ISO 64
 

While not perfect, this is an example of an image when I can really appreciate BackscatterXTerminator. Open water pelagic images are one of the few instances when I do care about backscatter, and generally I like to get rid of as much as possible. The software cleaned up 90% of the particulates in this photo and what remains is easily removed. BSXT also left the subject alone and did not pull any details off the main shark, meaning no layer and brush work for this picture. Fantastic!
 

Another example where BSXT left the subject alone. Interestingly, it did leave some pretty blatant particulates in the image, but it did remove about 95% and what’s left is easily dealt with

Lined Seahorse, Florida, USA
 

Nikon D4s, Nikon 60mm macro lens, Subal housing, Kraken KRL08s +6 diopter, dual Sea&Sea YS-250 strobes, f/4, 1/320s, ISO 100
 

For me, of the images I’ve run through BackscattterXterminator thus far, this is by far the most successful. Not only did the software remove just about every single piece of backscattter, but it left the subject alone and did not “plasticize” the surroundings. This is a result that BSXT is clearly capable of and truly lives up to the “one click” backscatter banishing. I don’t especially know what it is about this picture that allowed for such positive results.
 

Quite clearly, BSXT was on the top of its game for this one. It removed every bit of backscatter but did not touch the seahorse

Green Razorfish, Florida, USA
 

Nikon D4s, Nikon 60mm macro lens, Subal housing, dual Sea&Sea YS-250 strobes, f/3.2, 1/320s, ISO 100
 

I ran this image of a green razorfish after the seahorse above. I expected similar results considering the pictures were shot with the exact same gear, nearly identical settings, and a similarly colorful background. However, while a number of spots were removed, there are some pretty blatant particles left behind. Fortunately, once again, they are easy to remove after running the plugin. BackscatterXTerminator left the razorfish alone and did not pull any details off or remove part of it.
 

While the plugin missed some big bits of particulate, it treated my subject with care, leaving it essentially untouched. It seems to work better on images featuring “classical looking” subjects with regards to leaving the subject alone, but then that doesn’t explain the seahorse above…

Final Thoughts

Without doubt, BackscatterXTerminator is a useful tool that will likely save people hours, or days, or weeks of their lives removing backscatter. The plugin can often greatly reduce time spent processing images by getting you a long way towards a clean image—if that’s what you’re after. As you’d expect, it is not perfect—nothing ever is!—but for those wanting to have the cleanest possible images, this plugin will make life significantly easier, more efficient, and less aggravating!
 

About the Reviewer: Matthew Sullivan is a Florida-based wildlife photographer who has been diving since he was 10 years old. He has traveled extensively, visiting well-known dive destinations such as Guadalupe Island, Indonesia and the Philippines, but he also likes to dive closer to home in the Pacific Northwest. When not taking pictures underwater, he can be found trekking mountains, or exploring national parks and rainforests in search of new adventures and wildlife encounters.