How to remove haze from a photo?

Question

How to remove haze from a photo?

I have a number of pictures which were taken when the air was hazy. Is there a way to remove the haze from the photo, or have it miniminzed to emphasize the images in the photo? I have tried the Edit sliders, but it either makes it darker or lighter and affects all parts of the image the same way.
Thanks

20" IMAC G5, Mac OS X (10.4.6), 2 GHz, 1GB Ram

Posted on May 22, 2006 12:55 PM

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Answer 1

May 23, 2006 2:00 AM in response to Herschel Hochman

You can try the 'enhance' option, but you may get a discoloration that you don't like. Some of my photos have looked much better with this, and some were absolutely terrible. So, just try it and undo it if it doesn't do what you want.

Your best bet is to use some other software like Photoshop to edit your photos.

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Answer 2

May 24, 2006 8:39 AM in response to Beverly Maneatis

I have access to Photoshop Elements 2 which was used on an older Mac. Will this older version remove the haze from the photos? Will I have to update from Adobe to get it to work with the iMac G5?

Thanks

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Answer 3

May 24, 2006 3:40 PM in response to Herschel Hochman

Hello, Herschel,
Have a look at this thread to see if it helps you: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2032537&#2032537

You might just have to experiment and see if it works. I don't know because I have a G4, but PE 2 works for me, but I have not tried the 'haze' removal!

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Answer 4

May 24, 2006 4:10 PM in response to Beverly Maneatis

Thanks for the additional information. I'll try some of these ideas and see what happens.

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Answer 5

May 29, 2006 4:54 PM in response to Beverly Maneatis

Photoshop Elements 2 Solutions, written by Mikkel Aaland is a very good manual to complement the manual that comes with Photoshop Elements 2. I sent the author some of my images asking how the haze could be removed. He was not able to do this and felt that the haze was an integral part of the image and could only be changed using a setting that changes all pixels at once. My feeling is that a more expensive program in the $1000 range might be able to accomplish this working on a pixel basis. I will enhance the photos the best that I can and let it go at that.

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Answer 6

May 23, 2006 2:40 PM in response to Herschel Hochman

You can get most of what you want with Photoshop Elements. It is much cheaper than the regular version and for me does more than I would need.

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Answer 7

May 23, 2006 5:17 AM in response to Beverly Maneatis

It looks as though a third party program will be the only way to solve the problem.
Thanks

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Answer 8

May 25, 2006 12:57 AM in response to Herschel Hochman

You are very welcome. Post back with your results.

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Answer 9

May 29, 2006 7:48 PM in response to Herschel Hochman

Try auto contrast and if that doesn't work, try a local contrast enhancement: Unsharp Mask, with starting settings of 20, 50, 12 for the sliders. (But if Aaland couldn't fix it, I don't know…)

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Answer 10

May 30, 2006 4:30 AM in response to Barbara Brundage

Barbara,
Thanks for the tip. I think the Unsharp Mask will help since it seems to work at the pixel level.

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