Here’s an image I’m sort of stuck on. This is a photo of Mt. Cook from a recent trip to New Zealand (amazing country btw). The day was a bit hazy, so I’ve been trying to deal with that in the processing. The best result I have so far is to do a masked contrast adjustment with color balance rgb. Contrast equalizer seems like it could work too. Curious to see what other people can do. Have at it!
I didn’t use the haze removal tool, I just did a very slight downward bump of the shadows on Mt. Cook itself. I think removing any more of the (IMO) extremely minimal* haze would remove depth and flatten the image.
To my eye, that’s a very clear day, not hazy at all. Although shot in Colorado, living in the deep south US (as I do) this is what I think of when someone says “haze”.
For what you want, I feel you have done an excellent job. I have tried and cannot improve upon the ultraclear look you have created for Mt Cook. The color balance rgb module has become one of my favourite tools.
As a proud Kiwi, I could not resist the draw of having a go at this one.
I agree with previous opinion: Haze? What haze?
However I found the bush-clad foreground hill overpowered the mountain, so cropped it somewhat and dialed down the exposure there.
Thanks for the image to play with!
I set the white balance to the camera daylight preset, used the auto-matched tone curve, and the Adobe standard camera profile. The mountain’s blue haze seems to give a sense of depth.
DSC_7380.NEF.xmp (17.8 KB)
The XMP is for the colour version - to get the BW version just apply the Fuji Acros 100 preset in color calibration - in the plain instance, not the one labelled ‘darken blue sky’.
Thanks everyone! Yes, I guess haze wasn’t exactly the right term. I sort of forgot that Aoraki was still far away in the distance. However, I think I have some better strategies now to deal with the atmospheric scattering.
Thanks for the mention, but although I am a proud Kiwi I have lived in other countries (previously , now ) these past 32 years - go figure! I hope you can visit NZ again, but I also hope I can enjoy another visit to the South Island, which I haven’t managed beyond Picton since my childhood.
I sort of forgot that Aoraki was still far away in the distance. However, I think I have some better strategies now to deal with the atmospheric scattering.
I have lived in other countries (previously 
, now 
) these past 32 years - go figure! I hope you can visit NZ again, but I also hope I can enjoy another visit to the South Island, which I haven’t managed beyond Picton since my childhood.