[pluteoid]

It's really not so simple as this. It's really dim under the sea ice and these divers have used strobes and floodlights to pick out subjects in a dramatic way. On that front I don't think the images required much tampering with. It's just a photographic way of trying to convey the grandeur and beauty you'd experience if you were actually there.

In terms of how "vivid" the photos are, the problem is often quite the other way around to how you put it.

I've spent a lot of time exploring jungles and coral reefs, marvelling at the divesity of nature, all the jewel-like lifeforms on display. It's very difficult to capture with a camera what your eyes perceive as brilliant coloration and exquisitely contrasted form. Your visual system makes many profound processing adjustments based on your total lighting environment: chromatic adaptation, simultaneous contrast, perceptual constancy, and so on. You perceive a green insect on a green leaf as vivid and striking when you're in the jungle with it, but dull when looking at the correctly exposed photo you took of it.

Not to mention your vision has a larger dynamic range than a camera sensor and a wider color gamut than a typical computer screen.

Crude postprocessing will attempt to correct for this by just pumping up saturation, which is maybe what you're complaining about on Instagram. But the best nature photography compensates in other, more subtle and appropriate ways, and the result approaches the wonder we experience "in real life".