Pink Wave

Pink Wave is a preset built around one specific kind of morning: the kind where the sky blushes softly and the water barely moves. The palette is gentle, almost hazy, but never fake. Pastel pinks, quiet magentas, and a cool shadow base come together to create a mood you rarely plan for but immediately recognize when you see it.

On a technical level, the preset shifts the white balance slightly warm while pulling back the highlights in the sky to retain texture and detail. The shadows pick up a blue-purple undertone, adding depth without going dark or heavy. Contrast is kept deliberately low, which protects the softness across the tonal range. Oranges and reds in skin and sand are nudged toward pink, while blues and cyans in the water keep their clarity. The result feels like a photograph taken just after sunrise, even if the light was already a little further along when you pressed the shutter.

The preset performs best during dawn surf sessions, when the light is still fragile and the water holds the color of the sky. A surfer walking out of the water, foam trailing off the fins, the horizon still pink behind them. But it also works well for quieter beach scenes: wet sand with reflections, a board leaning against a dune, or a portrait shot against an early morning sky. It is less suited to midday scenes with hard overhead light, or to images with no sky or water in the frame at all.

You reach for Pink Wave when you want a series to feel consistent and calm. Not every image needs to be striking on its own. A soft, unified color palette can be exactly what holds a body of work together, whether you are building a portfolio, shaping a feed, or putting together a photo story about surfing or coastal life.

After applying the preset, adjust the exposure first before you evaluate the colors. Pink Wave is calibrated for a neutral exposure, and if your file is slightly under or overexposed, the colors will shift away from what is intended. A small correction of a third of a stop in either direction makes a clear difference before you do anything else.