Preserved Topic: Removing haze from photograph (Page 1 of 1)

I have some vacation pics I took in the Smokey Mountains and they, not surprisingly, have a significant amount of haze in them. I have tried the unsharp mask and it helps quite a bit, but I wondered if any of you gurus had any other suggestions for haze removal (other than cutting back on the mushrooms).

Thanks

I hate to break it to you rickindy, but the best way to remove haze is with a UV filter in front of the lens.
Once it's on the neg, anything you do is going to make the image appear 'manipulated' because there's little detail to bring out.


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Well in most cases there is not much you can do. But there as better methods then using USM, which reveils to may artifacts if used at highlevels. The following works well for sharpening shots of tight wove textiles that thend morie badly or begin to look jagged with over sharping, also works well with models fleshtones and hair. It would also work to push the image farther then you can with USM.

1. Copy the image layer

2. Run the high pass filter on the new layer, smaller valuse work well but experiment.

3. Then Apply the softlight or hardlight blending mode to the layer, now you can play with mix level until you get beter contrast and sharpness.

4. little USM as well just to increase the edge details.

Embose can used replaceing highpass, or combinations of the two as well as other blend modes also prove useful.

Play with various setting thats half the fun.

jstuartj

Yup, gotta agree with Dufty. The easiest method is usually to shoot the best original you can. UV fIlters can help, as can polarizing filters and maybe shooting the pics really early in the morning.. it's a magical time for light. Why would you want to remove the smoke from the Smokey Mountains?

edit: Jstuart= too fast for me



[This message has been edited by cyoung (edited 08-30-2002).]

Gotta disagree with the opinons about the usefulness of UV and polarizing filters - they have always let me down with haze. But I do have to agree with cyoung - it's the Smokie Mountains, not the Grand Canyon! How clear do you want it?


Anyway.

It could be more a matter of contrast than sharpness. I' not surprised USM didn't do much - USM emphasizes edge contrasts and if there isn't much to begin with, all USM will do is magnify defects.

jstuartj's high pass technique is a keeper. You might find that applying a curves adjustement layer on top of the high pass layer helps. If the color is good in the original and all you want to do is bump the contrast, the curves adjustment layer can be set to "luminosity" blend mode.

But whatever you do, don't obliterate the charm of the area by making it too crispy. That's lovely "soft" scenery.

Thanks a bunch! A combination of the high pass technique and some additional fiddling was just what it needed. It wasn't that I wanted to remove the "smoke" we were at one of the many dams ni the area at noon on a very humid day. The pics were so hazy that they were unattractive.

Thanks again for the help.

Usually I remove haze by using USM with a value of 20% and 60 pixel. In most of the cases it works.

adjusting the levels to remove some of the white haze works fine for light haze. But Dufty said it best that you have to start with some thing good. Why don't you post an image you are working on and we can all take a whack at working our magic!!!