Cutting Through the Haze
Serge June 27th, 2008
I’ve been traveling lately across the Western U.S., mostly in Nevada and California. Due to recent wildfires, there’s a tremendous amount of smoke and haze in the air that’s blocking some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. Some useful ACDSee tools, along with a few photography tips, can help “cut” the haze so that you can still get good photos–and maybe even use the haze to your advantage.
First, you’ll want to shoot in the RAW format. Because haze adds a lot of white tonality to your image and blocks contrast, the increased amount of tonal control you have with RAW allows you to edit images much more easily. Editing various feathered areas of your image will appear smoother and more seamless when working in RAW than JPEG.
Second, shoot with a haze filter, although this most likely will be insufficient to cut out significantly hazed scenes. You can also use a polarizing filter and experiment with it to see if it helps block some of the unwanted airborne particles. Make sure you shoot a little darker exposure than usual; only using an automatic setting on your camera may expose it more for the haze than for the subject!
I took a photo of some hikers in Yosemite’s Tuolomne Meadows, a high-altitude scenic spot in the California Sierra Nevada mountains. The mountains and trees in the distance were very obscured by haze, as you can see in the original image:
This is a problem you can spend a lot of time tweaking to your satisfaction, but there are some quick fixes. First, using the edit panel, do an overall auto-exposure for the photo. Do not adjust for color — just contrast. And make sure your “strength” setting isn’t too high, or else it will distort the image too much. Just use between a -49 and -45 level.
Next, using the Selection lasso tool, select the upper-regions of the image, where (at least in this example) the biggest haze problem is evident. Then, using Exposure/Levels, and feathering the image to at least 50 - 60 percent of the slider’s capacity, adjust your midtones and highlights until the hazed area looks better.
You’ll then want to select yet another horizontal area just below that where additional haze may still be evident — looking like a low-layer of fog. Adjust this in the same manner, but to a slightly lesser degree.
In this image, a little haze doesn’t hurt and can actually add to the effect, making the photo look like an early morning shot (which it wasn’t!).
Remember, haze will increase its effect on your image as the distance increases — a telephoto shot will have much more haze than a close-up or “normal” image. While you can’t entirely get rid of it, you can use it to positive effect in some cases.
You can see in my final example below that there are still areas I can work on, or, depending on my artistic judgment, I can leave them as they are. Either way, the image is significantly better than it was as first shot.
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