Grand Tetons

[judy]

This image was taken at GTNP on a hazy day. I would like to see what others can do about the haze and bright sunlight. Thank you.

Raw File

AC8A8185.CR3 (63.6 MB)

You may only download this file to demonstrate how you would process the image. The file is Copyright of the photographer, and you must delete the raw file when you are done. Please post a jpg of what you created, explain what you did, and why you did it.

My Edit

[Lon_Overacker]

Hi Judy,

First of all, welcome to NPN! And second, I’m so glad you posted this here. It’s been a while since anyone has posted a processing challenge. Hopefully a few others will chime in with their ideas. Hope to see you post in some galleries and engage with posting some comments too!

To start, this is a beautifully composed landscape and perhaps even a classic from the Tetons. I really like this image.

I think you did really well to combat the haziness of a midday shot. In fact, anything beyone what you already did, is really just subjective opinion. I’m guessing your rendition reflects pretty much exactly what you saw that day. So anything else is really just “pushing” things to be what anyone else wants this to be. If that makes sense.

Ok, having said that, thanks for giving us the opportunity for the challenge. My goal here from your request was to deal with the “haze” and midday conditions.

To start, I think the lower half of the image is processed pretty well. I don’t see much that could be improved. Although I noticed you did a commendable job removingthe cabin. Honestly, that’s one of the elements that I liked; giving the landscape image the old “homestead” vibe. But to each our own.

Here’s my rendition and screenshot of my image stack in PS. I’ll summarize the layers:

• my workflow typically includes adding a Camera Raw filter layer as a Smart Object layer so I can go back and tweak any number of adjustments. But in general, I opened your RAW image in ACR and made some minimal adjusments.
• I also played with Dehaze, Texture, Clarity to try and increase the contrast up top and remove that “haziness.” I might be a little heavy here, but again, very subjective.
• Next, I added a Levels Adjustment layer and masked out all but the trees/forest of the foreground. I wanted to raise the black/shadow levels a little bit.
• A dodge layer to bring more attention to the cabin and corral. I see you clone that out. I wanted to emphasize
• cloned out the sprinklers as you did
• I used Tony Kuyper’s “TK panel” and used the “paint contrast” to increase contrast in the mountain and sky
• Used a Mid-tones mask of the meadow/forest to increase luminosity a bit after I had lost that in ACR globally
• Then another Levels Adj layer using a darks mask and set the black point of the mountain to remove any blue in the shadows.
• Within ACR, I tweaked/adjusted the vibrance and saturation to taste. I’m not sure if the blue sky is accurate, but certainly brought that out instead of the somewhat washed out sky in the original

If this were mine, I would spend more time tweaking, but I think the idea and challenge to help reduce the haze and midday conditions, was a great challenge.

Thanks for posting!

[judy]

Thank you so much Lori! I love what you did to the sky—much better than my bland one. I will have to rethink keeping the cabin.