Removing Foreground "Haze"

[michaeljlawson]

Hello,

 

I was taking some pictures at the local zoo yesterday and one of them was through a fence. There is still a

slight haze where the blurred out fence was across the image. Any tips on removing it? The image is here:

http://www.photo.net/photo/7663606

 

Thanks,

Michael

[silverdae]

Try this: a rough selection of the "hazy" area. Make a new adjustment level and add contrast via levels or curves to the selected hazy part. Blur the mask or touch up the edges of the mask with a big soft brush to blend it into the rest of the image.

 

Good luck!

[michaeljlawson]

Thanks Jen. I tried that quickly and see that it will take a little more time to get it right, but it should do the trick. Thanks again, Michael.

[AaronFalkenberg]

Or, if you want to work "quick and dirty" on the image itself, use the "burn" brush in the tool palette: set it to midtones and an amount of about 10%. Two seconds and you'll never know there was anything between you and the cat.

[michaeljlawson]

"Quick and Dirty" wins (No offense Jen)....Thanks for the tip Aaron

[silverdae]

I see... ask a question and then don't take my advice... thanks... :-)

 

Dodging/burning is a great way too. To add to that tip, try this- hold down alt and click "create new blank layer." When the dialog pops up, choose "soft light" or "overlay" (I prefer soft light) and choose "fill with neutral color 50% gray." Then dodge and burn on this layer. You'll see less of a saturation increase (even less so with soft-light). This is good when you are working on skin tones in the future, or if you just can't keep the saturation down on an image by burning on a normal layer.

[michaeljlawson]

Thanks again Jen, I will play with that method too.

[michaeljlawson]

That works nicely too. It's going to take a while to perfect any of these, but it's looking better each time. I appreciate both of your assistance.