Hey all,

I was just wondering if someone could help me. In most of the photos I take of landscapes there seems to be what looks like smog on the skyline. I dont know if it is the camera or the memory card causing this.

What I would like to know is how can I fix this with photoshop? I would like to keep the pictures as close to original as possible.

I have attached a pic to show what is happening.

Thanks
Margie

The original seemed fairly normal and expected to me. The distance does get a little hazy either from normal humidity or smog. To increase the contrast in the background I used a levels adjustment layer in photoshop. I moved the black slider to the right to increase the contrast in the photo. I then filled the mask with black so there was no effect initially.
I then painted the mask with white to bring out the background.

Your original though was fine and appeared to be natural.

The enclosed picture shows the levels adjustment layer and what was masked (black) and what was shown.

This image does look strange to me - but I suppose if you live in an area that has smog haze, it is understandable. It's not simply normal haziness caused by distance, as there is a very distinct curved line in the sky, rather than the more normal gradation of shading - I presume this must be a low lying layer of smog. If you are not in a built up area then I find it a bit baffling.

(Well, either that, or you've captured on film a damn big sister planet that we have previously been unaware of... :dizzy: )

The previous picture was taken in southern Tasmania, Australia. There are virtually no built up areas here. It is actually quite a picturesque spot. The air in Tasmania is the purest in the world. There is no smog, I assure you. The worlds air purity is measured not far from where this pic was taken.
On the day the pic was taken the skies were blue with no sign of any smog whatsoever.
I have attached pic of Hobart, where you would expect smog. It has the same 'smog' outline. This pic is taken about 75km north of the other one, and over the city. I would expect some smog but not this much.

Do you have any other examples on a clear sky Margie? That last one from Hobart looks like a more natural cloud effect.

hi scubamargie,

and welcome to RP!

i think if this thing showed up in my camera takes, and i knew this wasnt there in the sky when i took the shot, then i'd be very suspicious of the camera, particularly the lens. if it's not on the lens, and you've got a camera with detachable lenses, then i'd be very suspicious of the internal surface of the camera.

if it's neither of those, then i'd try to isolate where it's coming from. it could be a translation problem when transferring the image from the camera to the computer. or maybe it's just something with the way ps is reading your camera files or a setting in ps that needs to change. really not sure.

i'd also check the camera manual and see if there is a setting on the camera that may be set wrong.

as for fixing the image in ps, i'm not a ps user, but the operations shld be similar. the first question is, though, do you want to completely remove that yellowish hue or just blend the bluer sky with this yellower one in a more natural way?

Craig

have a look at this one Caitlin.

Thanks Kraellin,
I bought this camera to take diving. It takes really good pics under the water.
I only seem to have problems with it above water.

You might be right about the lens. I dont think it is a problem with photoshop because other programs pic it up as well.

Attached is a pic taken underwater.

I would like to take as much of the yellow out as possible. Make it look more like what I saw the day I took the picture.

ok, that's something on the camera. notice that in pic 1 and pic 3 the yellow smudge is almost exactly the same. it's got the same arc and the same hue. that's almost gotta be on the camera or lens. that it doesnt show in the underwater pics isnt a surprise. the blue is masking the yellow there, i would guess.

ever think about leaks? that water might have gotten inside the camera or lens during an underwater shot?

and that I dont think it is a problem with photoshop because other programs pic it up as well. again points to the camera or lens.

ok, to fix your current images, use the hue/saturation/lightness adjustment layer and simply alter that hue to what you want it to be. in psp you could also maybe use the hue map feature to do this, but the hue/sat/light adjustment layer shld do the trick.

Craig

edit: oh, and dont use the 'master' setting in hue/sat/light. use one of the color settings.... like yellow :)

Yup, I agree with Craig - It's got to be a camera or lens problem. Have you tried taking some test shots of blank white/grey backgrounds?

This is a bit rough at the edges - but a magic wand selection, and a colour and brightness/contract adjustment layers seem to be able to fix the problem relatively easily (at least for a clean sky such as this one).

If this is a special underwater camera, I wonder if it has a slightly yellow lens for contrast.

As I have no idea in a real world what an underwater photo looks like, I did a curves adjustment on your fish and notated roughly where the sample points were taken from.

Margie,

Played with tone masks, layer masks, curves, and dodging/burning on a 50% softlight gray layer. Pretty complicated! Pretty much trial and error till I got to what I thought was acceptable.

Is this sort of what you are looking for. There are many variations that can be achieved depending on what you want.

Larry

I agree with the others, this is a fault with the camera. To fix the image I used burn tool on shadows setting to give the land area a bit more contrast. The used colour replacement tool and selected the blue from the sky, and painted over the poor area of the sky. Duplicated that layer and used colour replacement again (using green) to go over the land area and remove the blue tint in the image. Set that layer at 34% opacity, flattened image and saved.
Simple but effective quick fix :D

Is this sort of what you are looking for. There are many variations that can be achieved depending on what you want.

LarryLooks like you've only done the mountains Larry, and I only did the sky! Put our attempts together and we could do ok! *lol*

Hi,
Here is my attempt.
I only had a minute, but I opened the image, converted to LAB and then I used a simple curve in the B channel and converted back to RGB. BTW, the smog was in many parts of the image and this little curve really corrected it. I wish most of my images only had this minor problem. Personally, I think the shot is really nice, but I don't think there is a problem with a camera or a lens. I see images like this quite a bit with images from my drum scanner and digital shots and it is easy to clear up once you understand that color and detail need to be separated and the work is easy, hence LAB.

God Bless,
Rodi

Hi again,
All input device veer (drift) towards certain colors. My old flatbed goes to green/magenta while my drum scanner to blue/yellow. It is just a fact of life that we have to deal with color drift. I think the shots are good and pretty easy to fix.
Here is my fish, which I hope you do enjoy. I did this in two steps and it took me a couple of minutes and I probably would have done it in one step, but I took another look and hence the second step, which moved the artwork some, but not drastically. What I did essentially is what a scanner operator would have done pre Photoshop era, look at the tranny (jpg in this instance) and then say, I think I know what I would like it to look like, do you agree?
Next time I will right mysteps down to give them to you.


God Bless,
Rodi :bandit:

It seems strange that the blue, green, a, b, and magenta channels show damage. hard to know what that is about, see pic below.

berwin

I want to say a big thanks to everyone who responded. I will try all of your suggestions and let you know how I go. :bow:

All of you did a good job on the pics.

Hey Guys,
Just a quick update. I had a go at fixing the photos and they worked out pretty good. I've also been playing around with other filters to change the look of the pic.
Thanks again for the help.

I was taking photos the other day. Attached is one that doesnt show the "smog". There is one thing I have to try...taking the memory card out of the camera and taking photos with the onboard memory. I will let you know what happens when I do.

Hi ScubaMargie

Welcome to RetouchPro.

One thing that may have caused the halo in your original post is Condensation.
It will Not be caused by the memory card.

Ken

marjie,

great pic, though i think i'd move that one big cloud to another location ;)

i'd really suggest finding what's making that smog effect though. it's going to be nothing but heartache if you dont.

Craig

Hey everyone,

Cameraken... I dont know if it is condensation but you were right about the memory card. I took a couple of photos today without the memory card and they still jad the smog in them.
I would really love to find out what the camera is doing...it might be time for an upgrade.

Kraellin, moving that cloud is pretty easy with the techniques shown here, in this thread. Thanks for responding and Ill keep you up to date on what the camera is doing.

Take it easy

margie,

sounds like you've got it somewhat isolated to the add-on memory. could just be that stick is doing it. do you have another? and, if you take duplicate pictures with and without the card do they come out the same?

Craig

Hey Kraellin

Its definitely not the memory card. I tried taking a couple of pics with the onboard memory and they came out with the same 'smog' effect. I have emailed the manufacturer of the camera and am waiting for a reply from them. Will let you know what they say.

Take it easy

ScubaMargie, I have known cameras to fail, my 10+ yo kodak is becoming very pixelated, some of the newer Canons had CCD failures and quite a few clients have commented about deteriorating images in digital over time, added to this, with projectors we have experienced hairline fractures in the chips which also provide articulated flaws in images. Hope your feedback is more positive than mine from the manufacturer. Due to declining image I have recently replaced my camera with a new one, my original having costed in excess of $2000 and the cheap replacement, much more capable at $495 or thereabouts

There is an action that is highly recomended across many sites, available from Adobe Exchange. It is called the underwater action and was developed for of course underwater images. Here is the result, I tweaked nothing else, which of course you could.

Hey Cassidy,
I am still waiting for a reply from the manufacturer, I hope they dont take too long. Thanks for the reply, I'll let everyone know what happens when I do get a reply from them.

creeduk, I love what you did to the pic and am now going over to Adobe Exchange to get the action. Thanks

Take it easy

I never use the Auto adjustments however I tried it on the fish, (autocolor, auto levels, auto contrast) and it looks similar to the one from the action above but with more contrast.

Hey cspringer,

will have a go and see how it turns out.

Thanks

creeduk
I found the action you were talking about and have applied it to more of my pics. I have to say THANK YOU VERY MUCH :nod: I havent seen anything like it in any of my pics or others for that matter.

Thanks again