Dehaze scenes in Adobe CC

James Paterson gets to grips with this powerful Raw tool to add some extra oomph and vibrancy to your photographs

Get clearer shots with this magic tool

As the name suggests, the Dehaze command reduces atmospheric haze in landscape photos. Found within Camera Raw and Lightroom (as well as in Photoshop’s Camera Raw filter) the command is a simple slider that not only lets you reduce the haze, but also enables you to go the other way and make your images look even more hazy.

Of course, the Dehaze effect isn’t a magical trick that actually eradicates haziness. Instead, it works by applying a boost in contrast and sharpness to a specific part of the tonal range – the part that mostly ties in with hazy highlights in landscapes. As such, we can make the most the effect not just for hazy scenes, but also for all sorts of other types of photographs where we might want to use the boost in contrast and detail in other, equally effective ways.

Take, for example, the landscape here. Boosting Dehaze has a wonderful effect on the sky, resulting in a richness of colour entirely lacking in the straightout-of-camera shot.

Similarly, Dehaze can work wonders on cloud details in skies, teasing out shapes and intensifying colours. In fact, it can help to boost those wishy-washy faded tones in all kinds of photographs, not just your landscape images.

However, it can also produce some unwanted side effects, like deep shadows or colour casts. So it might end up being necessary to tweak some of the settings afterwards to restore an even balance to the tones. Let’s have a look at how you can do so…

Open in Camera Raw

Navigate to the image in Adobe Bridge then right-click it and ‘Open in Camera Raw’ (this can be done whether the image is in Raw or JPEG format). Start by making initial adjustments using the tonal sliders in the Basic panel. We’ve lowered the exposure slightly to -0.20.

Dehaze the image

Go to the Dehaze slider in the Basic panel to the right and increase it to add punch to the photo. Here it also draws extra colour and saturation out of the blue sky. To help judge the effect, toggle on a before/after view by clicking the split-screen icon at the bottom right.

Reduce colour casts

A strong Dehaze boost can result in unwanted colour shifts – here it’s resulted in a slight purple cast across the clouds on the right. To counter it, head to the HSL panel. Click on the Saturation tab, and then drag the Purples slider down to reduce the colour shift.

Add a grad

We can apply Dehaze selectively with the Graduated Filter tool. Grab it from the toolbar then click the plus icon next to Dehaze to load the tool with an adjustment. Hold Shift and drag downwards from the top of the sky towards the land. This pulls out a little extra cloud detail.

Enhance the building

We can use Camera Raw’s Adjustment Brush to add some extra vibrancy and contrast to the building. Grab the tool from the toolbar then load it with positive Clarity, Exposure and Dehaze. Check ‘Auto-mask’ then paint over the building. You can hit Y to toggle a handy mask view on or off.

Soften the water

The Dehaze effect is too strong over the water, resulting in over-saturated colours and contrast. Still using the Adjustment Brush, click New at the top right, then click the minus icon next to Dehaze. Paint over the water to soften the area. Make any other tonal changes you like to finish off the image.