Landscape blue haze removal

[Tzetsin]

I got this once in a lifetime shot. I'm standing on top of a mountain looking down on the town below. Its raining, but a small break opens and a magnificent rainbow appears. In the distance is a wide valley ending in a magestic mountain range, the clouds are interesting and fairly well exposed.

The problem is pretty much everything in the shot above the rainbow. its dark as in under exposed and has a blue color cast that I just cant seem to get rid of because of the rain. Is there any way to resolve this haze? I'm pretty sure every landscape photographer has had to deal with it at some time.

The depth of the shot is about 40-50 km.

I'm almost thinking black and white is the only way to save it, but how do you do a rainbow in black n white?

Sorry i dont have an example of it. When i get to the computer thats got it i'll show you. Till then, any advice on the blue haze?

[ravncat]

maybe a localized contrast and or if in raw a localized clarity adjustment. As for the color - white balance may help - im not really sure, need to see the image myself

[Tzetsin]

Alright, heres the shot I was talking about. And one I worked on. I'm still not really happy with the edit, what can I do to save this shot?

orig1-640.jpg

IMG_9569-640.jpg

[kcoppock]

Best method I've seen is to kill the shadows of the blue channel in Curves. In this case, doing the same with reds helped too. I've attached an example with corrections, and the Curve I used attached as well. It's just a quickie, you could do better with tweaking. Very nice shot, by the way!

[Tzetsin]

Originally Posted by kcoppock

Best method I've seen is to kill the shadows of the blue channel in Curves. In this case, doing the same with reds helped too. I've attached an example with corrections, and the Curve I used attached as well. It's just a quickie, you could do better with tweaking. Very nice shot, by the way!

Very nice! thats exactly what it needed. you know, I really need to pay more attention to curves. I've never used it for color casts before. You better believe that It'll be my new best friend in the future though. Thank you very much for the insight.

Thank you for the compliment on the shot too, I was pretty excited when i saw the scene. its not every day you see a perfect rainbow below you while standing on top of a mountain ;D

Second part though, how about the under exposed terrain above the rainbow, is that salvageable? This shot IS in raw format at 21MP so I have as much data to work with as is possible.

[kcoppock]

Originally Posted by Tzetsin

Very nice! thats exactly what it needed. you know, I really need to pay more attention to curves. I've never used it for color casts before. You better believe that It'll be my new best friend in the future though. Thank you very much for the insight.

Thank you for the compliment on the shot too, I was pretty excited when i saw the scene. its not every day you see a perfect rainbow below you while standing on top of a mountain ;D

Second part though, how about the under exposed terrain above the rainbow, is that salvageable? This shot IS in raw format at 21MP so I have as much data to work with as is possible.

Curves is hard to get started with, but you can do a LOT with it. I love it.

And yeah, definitely one of those rare opportunities for a shot. That's when a polarizing filter would've come in pretty handy.

Nothing looks blown out or too terrible -- it's hard to say from such a small version, but I'm sure you could touch it up a bit. If nothing else, do a couple of processed RAWs, one for each different area, and then just mask out the unwanted parts for each layer.

[Tzetsin]

Originally Posted by kcoppock

And yeah, definitely one of those rare opportunities for a shot. That's when a polarizing filter would've come in pretty handy.
.

Lol, Actually, the polarizing fillter didnt help at all, or at least I dunno how much WORSE it would have been without it on. My filter was stuck on my 24-70L for that entire trip, I didnt take a single shot with that lens that didnt have it on.

Your right, I'm not clipping either side, but the landscape is so dark its hardly got any detail or color in it at all. I dont think I'll be able to bring that back without making it look very processed though. I'm just going to have to accept the fact that though it was a great opertunity, It'll never be a wall hanger. I'm not sure how I could have shot that differently to make it better though. Other than HDR, which was impossible at the time, my 5dmk2 is far too slow to pull off 3 shots without movement... I've tried many many times n i didnt have a tripod with me.

[kcoppock]

Originally Posted by Tzetsin

Lol, Actually, the polarizing fillter didnt help at all, or at least I dunno how much WORSE it would have been without it on. My filter was stuck on my 24-70L for that entire trip, I didnt take a single shot with that lens that didnt have it on.

Your right, I'm not clipping either side, but the landscape is so dark its hardly got any detail or color in it at all. I dont think I'll be able to bring that back without making it look very processed though. I'm just going to have to accept the fact that though it was a great opertunity, It'll never be a wall hanger. I'm not sure how I could have shot that differently to make it better though. Other than HDR, which was impossible at the time, my 5dmk2 is far too slow to pull off 3 shots without movement... I've tried many many times n i didnt have a tripod with me.

Well so much for that idea. :P

Really though, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I think visually, it's expected to see some haziness in a photo like that -- it's still an excellent photo, I wouldn't dismiss the wall hanger-ness () just because of that.

[JFSanders]

Hope you don't mind but I did an edit on it in NX2. What do you think? I may have gotten too much magenta into the clouds.

Jim

[Tzetsin]

Originally Posted by JFSanders

Hope you don't mind but I did an edit on it in NX2. What do you think? I may have gotten too much magenta into the clouds.

Jim

The rainbow looks fantastic. The rest of the shot is quite a bit darker than I was hoping to end up with, but what you've done would make a great rainbow layer.