Processing foggy/hazy shots

Hi all;

I spent a month in Asia taking tons of photos... and much of time was in pretty hazy or foggy conditions.

What tips should I keep in mind when processing? I don't mind taking advantage of the haze for the vibe.. or even minimizing it if possible.

So which one is it, go with the haze for a vibe or reduce it?

If you want to keep things hazy just do nothing.

To reduce the haze (and I would really have to see an example image) I would adjust exposure, shadows and highlights in the Lightroom basic panel and then move down to the curves and pull the black point over to the right to where the histogram starts. The curve adjustment will add a bunch of contrast and reduce the haze.

I guess my problem is that the haze doesn't come across as it did in real life. In the photo it's less impactful.

'pull the black point over to the right to where the histogram starts'
I like this concept. I'll have to experiment with it later.

I'm not sure how you shot this and what the exposure is like on the images; however, if one were photographing in a foggy or hazy environment and wanted to keep the foggy/hazy look they would need to over expose a little bit from what their camera's meter was telling them. Something to keep in mind as you process.

I'll post some photos shortly.

Here are 3.. one of them a local shot. First the untouched version, and then my LR work for each.
https://lh4.googleuser​content.com …uched%29+%284+o​f+4%29.jpg
https://lh5.googleuser​content.com …uched%29+%284+o​f+4%29.jpg
https://lh4.googleuser​content.com …uched%29+%281+o​f+4%29.jpg
https://lh3.googleuser​content.com …uched%29+%281+o​f+4%29.jpg
https://lh6.googleuser​content.com …uched%29+%283+o​f+4%29.jpg
https://lh4.googleuser​content.com …uched%29+%283+o​f+4%29.jpg

Thanks... I look forward to any ideas/critique.

Well.. the first photo is displaying correctly for me.. the remaining 3 only show links here. Let me know if you have trouble.

Try any b/w conversions? I played around with that first one and it turned out really nicely. Just a thought if the haze / color issues are getting to you.. been there before

I agree the 1st image is not that bad, the haze adds a bit of realism to the image. I set the black and white points and added a bit of midtone contrast and the image looked just fine to me. If you want others to take a shot at editing your image and posting the results here, you should set "IMAGE EDITING OK" in your profile.

I set the editing ok flag.. Thanks!

Stone, when you set the black and white points, are you referring to a Lightroom function? Do you mind explaining that to me? I get the concept, but never done this is LR.

My take on the image...

https://dl.dropbox.com​/u/41183616/Foggy_pic.​jpg

This may be fairly a complicated subject, but I switched the image to Lab mode to separate the color and luminance components, as so:

https://dl.dropbox.com​/u/41183616/Foggy.jpg
Don't mind the typo in the image.
Lastly I applied some color balance to make the image a little warmer in the mid-tones/shadows, and that's basically it. I think it's a good balance between haze/presence...

There are two components of haze in these images - for lack of a better way to describe it - the overall haze that appears to be present, even in the foreground and the atmospheric effect of haze suggesting distance, where things far away lack contrast compared to things in the foreground. If you want to cut some of the overall haze to bring out the foreground, that is probably a good move - removing all of the haze effects will probably detract from the images, in that the distant features will appear unnatural and the sense of distance will be removed.

Haze tends to decrease contrast and lower saturation - if haze has a color to it, it may also tint the image, requiring a different white balance to neutralize it.

Kolor-Pikker's local adjustments address the nature of the above description of the haze components and their overall effect on the image. The key is to remember the depth effect and not to overdo it.

In the attached image, I concentrated on the middle ground ridge - i added some contrast by pulling in the black point and adjusting the gamma. This darkened the area, so I boosted the exposure slightly to bring the tone back to the original. I added some vibrance and then some local contrast with a high-pass in overlay mode. Finally, I added some blue to the sky - I should have added the blue to the background trees as well as the haze here is brownish smog, so some blue would neutralize that color.

The effect is subtle, but it cuts through the haze in the middle ground. There is a lot of JPEG compression artifact, I apologize for that.

Season to taste.

kirk

in LR4, white and black points are set via the whites and blacks sliders. The goal is to establish what's near or at pure white and pure black. I did a few quick adjustments all in LR, could have probably done much better if I spent more time on it or took it into CS6. In a nutshell, I adjusted white balance, contrast, whites, blacks, clarity, saturation and added a very slight vignette. I left the haze going into the background as I feel it adds depth to the image. I might have played with the blue channel in the tone curve a bit also. I do think I did a bit too much sharpening, but I used one of my export presets and didn't check it....

http://farm9.staticfli​ckr.com …55453088_b041eb​7746_o.jpg

Dan Kearley wrote in post #15339487
I guess my problem is that the haze doesn't come across as it did in real life. In the photo it's less impactful.

'pull the black point over to the right to where the histogram starts'
I like this concept. I'll have to experiment with it later.

You might want to look into buying a nice CPL filter for your lens. It's very valuable in situations like these as well as giving a decent saturation boost.

Wow. There is a lot for me to study here. You've all done what I was trying to do here!

Stone; Thanks very much. I'll be using your post as a guide. If there was a way to export a develop preset, I'd humbly ask for it!

Thanks everyone!