ç Astronaut photos are popular on social media, but they are hardly ever color-corrected properly.

From space, the Earth looks like a Big Blue (and white) Marble. 71% is blue water and, on average, 55% of the land is covered with clouds. Half of the planet is flat black and, in orbit, daylight lasts only 45 minutes at a time. The ground below zips by at five miles per second so you have to be quick.  Motion-blur can be a problem. Opportunities for a perfect shot are very rare and fleeting, and an astronaut’s time for recreational photography is limited.

Our atmosphere also has a blue tint, which is why the sky is such a rich blue on a perfectly clear day.  In orbit, Earth glows doubly blue because 1) sunlight passes through the blueish air and illuminates the ground, then 2) the reflected light has to go through the blueness a second time before reaching the camera in space.  Our eyes auto-correct the tint but digital cameras rarely “auto white balance” correctly under such extreme conditions.

And here’s that photo with the contrast improved. è

This image, in every detail, is 100% real. If the camera had been adjusted manually, this is what it would have looked like.

ç It takes under a minute to white-balance a photo with Photoshop™, and the natural colors of a golden sunrise emerge. The horizon is now sky blue, just as it should be. Notice the phrase “color-correct“. The photo isn’t being artificially tinted, it is being adjusted to accurately reproduce what the astronaut’s eyes probably saw.