# Remove haze / brighten up image



## petermeier2525

Dear community

I'm trying to remove the haze/fog in some images I made when being in the alps. Tried to follow some tutorials but none of them really helped 

e.g. this photo: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8b1l7xgtuetrx11/_DSC0949.NEF (a smaller version is attached to this post)
The background needs some tweaking to have brighter colours and doesn't look that "dull" (sorry for my english, not a native speaker here)

Is there something I can do abut it? And would a polarising filter help in such situations?


Thanks a lot
Peter


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## apercele79

I'm not an expert in lightroom by any means but I would use huge brush to brush the entire hazy part and then increase the contrast and decrease the highlights. I have a hunch it may improve your image


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## sizzlingbadger

the clarity tool will all help in the sky area.


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## wtlloyd

*here's one*

bottom line - you took a picture of haze, the more you remove the harder the file will fall apart.

this is my attempt, I look forward to being trounced soundly by others.


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## clee01l

Two adjustments. Clarity as Nik has already suggested and reducing the Blue Luminance in the HSL tool.


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## Jimmsp

wtlloyd said:


> bottom line - you took a picture of haze, the more you remove the harder the file will fall apart.
> 
> this is my attempt, I look forward to being trounced soundly by others.


This is pretty good and is about as good as you can do using only Lightroom.


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## Rob_Cullen

I had a go just on the jpg in you first post- with this result, using LR only!
I used a gradient filter down over the sky and the mountains, and a brush adjustment on the mountains. Screen shots-






Gradient Filter-





Adjustment brush-


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## camner

There is a develop preset that does a pretty decent "1st cut" at haze reduction.  It can often be improved upon by tweaking afterwards.  Of course, as a preset it gets applied to the entire image, unlike the techniques that use a gradient or other filters.

http://toddmedema.com/blog/how-to-reduce-haze-including-a-lightroom-4-pr/


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## Rob_Cullen

My suggestion is to- Create your own Adjustment Brush Preset.
In my post on 25th June above- see the image of the Adjustment Brush settings- Set your brush to something similar (alter to your liking),  Then open the menu from the 'arrows' beside the word 'Custom' and "Save Current Settings as New Preset"
Then you will always have a Brush preset to reduce haze, which can be brushed specifically only to areas that need it.


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## mentalaustrian

*my version*






gradiant, adjustment brush, curve
....just have seen that the bottom is a bit blown out. easy to correct


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## Victoria Bampton

Welcome to the forum mentalaustrian. Love the username!


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## mentalaustrian

Thank you  seems to be a nice place


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## smcf

Hi!
Here's a quick attempt using just a large adjustment brush across the background mountains, leaving sky and foreground untouched. Settings of the adjustment:





Here's a before/after closeup:





Final result:


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## rob211

Here's what DxO OpticsPro does with it, just processing the RAW and adding the "clarity" haze filter defaults.

What I like is that it's truer to the picture the OP had. And it preserves some haze, to give depth. But I don't like the halo around the biggest tree. But this is just a starting point. I love this tool in DxO.


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## Jimmsp

rob211 said:


> Here's what DxO OpticsPro does with it, just processing the RAW and adding the "clarity" haze filter defaults.
> 
> What I like is that it's truer to the picture the OP had. And it preserves some haze, to give depth. But I don't like the halo around the biggest tree.



Not obvious to me that it really is a halo. It could be the green fields on the mountain which show through and were lightened.


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## rob211

You could be right about the halo; might be a feature, not a bug so to speak. I also like the way it left relief and detail on the slope behind the grove of trees.


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