I have been very pleased with the presets on the diffuse or sharpen module in landscape photography, especially. I have not yet learned how to really use the module beyond making a few adjustments to the presets and would like to learn from other DT users- though do not feel limited to just the DoS module! This is not one of my best shots, but does exhibit some of the difficult haze and atmospheric effects that I am trying to counter.
Others will have better takes but I have sometimes used the D&S dehaze preset with a gradient so that it works mostly in the distant areas. Also I might tone down the blues a bit with color balance RGB also with a gradient and add contrast in the same way. But obviously this can go too far as atmospheric haze often does appear blue to us. Maybe RGB Primaries might also work. I think @s7habo might have done a video on this at some point?
sorry no darktable here, since i am a RT-user. As @TonyBarrett mentioned, haze often appears blue, thats why in these cases i usually reduce the blues in the midtones. My version in RT-dev:
Two instances of d/s dehaze. One for the whole image and another with a gradient mask for the mountains. Didn’t try to remove the haze completely, as that wouldn’t look natural. Colour-wise, I made the greens less dusty using the channel mixer.
When it comes to dehazing there are two obvious options in DT. One is the dehaze preset in diffuse or sharpen and the other in the dehaze module. In my screen shot here the diffuse or sharpen is the one on the left and the dehaze module is on the right. It is personal preference which you prefer, but I usually default to the dehaze module, set the strength between 20 - 40% and apply a gradient mask. Artistically speaking I feel haze is a natural part of landscapes and just because we can remove it I am not convinced we always should.
Martin: yes this was taken through a plexiglass window of a small airplane at about 3000 ft above ground.
Terry: I agree that haze can be artistic, though I feel photographing through windows and a lot of atmosphere tends to make my photos look like they were taken in the 1960s. It can be nice to have a different look!
I’d normally agree that a bit of haze isn’t something you should worry about too much, but I also don’t think having a thick band of blue coming down the top third of your photo is particularly good look either personally. These mountains still look distant enough to me lol.
When losing sharpness through plexiglass windows or from whatever, I find the lens deblur presets in the diffuse or sharpen module are one effective method to bring back sharpness. For most of my images I use the lens deblur:soft preset as a standard sharpening default if I want crisp looking images.
