ACQUIRING clear images in underwater environments is an important issue in ocean engineering. The quality of underwater images plays a pivotal role in scientific missions such as monitoring sea life, taking census of populations, and assessing geological or biological environments. Capturing images underwater is challenging, mostly due to haze caused by light that is reflected from a surface and is deflected and scattered by water particles, and colour change due to varying degrees of light attenuation for different wavelengths. Light scattering and colour change result in contrast loss and colour deviation in images acquired underwater.