A Quick Cure For Dehaze Color Shifts With Photoshop

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Without Dehaze

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Dehaze may create color artifacts

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Color artifacts removed

Color without Dehaze blended with luminosity with Dehaze

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The top layer is set to a blend mode of Color

When you’re using Lightroom or Camera Raw, you’ll quickly find the Dehaze slider can produce marvelous contrast effects. Dehaze can dramatically exceed the contrast that can be produced with either Curves or Clarity. Sometimes it will reveal detail you couldn’t see with your eyes!

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Often, there’s a price to pay for these great effects – color shifts. Neutral areas may turn magenta. Shadows may pick up strong blue or green casts. To make matters worse, these unwanted artifacts are rarely uniform, which makes them harder to fix.

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If you’re lucky you can compensate by reducing Saturation after using Dehaze. When you do this, it’s likely that you’ll end up choosing the least objectionable version or making a compromise you’d prefer not to. Frequently, to avoid these side effects, you’ll be tempted to not to push Dehaze as far as you’d like to.
There is a cure that will help you go as far as you’d like, without producing color shifts. Render your image twice. First, render it with as much Dehaze as you’d like. Second, render it without Dehaze.

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Then place the version without Dehaze in a layer on top of the version with Dehaze. Change the Blend Mode of the top layer to Color. This will give you a combination of the color of the top layer (without Dehaze’s color artifacts) and the luminosity of the bottom layer (with Dehaze’s contrast).

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How do you make two layers from one Raw file?

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If you’re using Lightroom, make a virtual copy and then double click on the Dehaze slider. Highlight the original file and the virtual copy and select Photo > Edit In > Open as Layers in Photoshop. Now in Photoshop, make sure to change the top layer’s blend mode from Normal to Color.

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If you’re using Camera Raw, open your Raw file as a smart object, then select New Smart Object via Copy in the Layer menu, and finally double click on the top layer to return the Dehaze slider to 0. Remember, change the top layer’s blend mode from Normal to Color.

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The technique of using the color of one layer to overlay another layer can be used for many applications. Here, it makes Dehaze even more useful.

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Read more color adjustment resources here.

Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

Masters Of Photojournalism Share Their Hard Earned Wisdom

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Where can you find inspiration and advice from over 100 of the world’s top photojournalists?

The Magnum Photos website is a treasure trove of great content that I find exceptionally inspiring and educational.

But where do you start?

Sample these eight resources first.

Finding Your Subject By Magnum’s Bruce Davidson

Creating a Portfolio: Advice from Magnum Photographers

Long-term Photographic Projects Tips From Magnum Photographers

Telling Stories: the Single Image VS The Series

Simple Advice For Photographers By Magnum’s Alex Soth

Advice to Documentary Photographers From Magnum’s Martin Parr

Work Ethic: The Principles That Have Shaped A Photographic Practice By Magnum’s Susan Meislas

On Ambiguity By Magnum’s Stuart Franklin

Visit Magnum Photos and sign up for their newsletter here.

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About Magnum Photos

In 1947 Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, George Rodger and David Seymour founded one of the most important artists’ cooperative ever created – The Magnum Photos agency.

Magnum photographers are a rarity and the agency is self-selecting; membership is a minimum four-year process and is considered the finest accolade of a photographer’s career.

For nearly 70 years Magnum Photos has been providing the highest quality photographic content to an international client base of media, charities, publishers, brands and cultural institutions. The Magnum Photos library is a living archive updated regularly with new work from across the globe.

Magnum Photos maintains its founding ideals and idiosyncratic mix of journalist, artist and storyteller. Their photographers share a vision to chronicle world events, people, places and culture with a powerful narrative that defies convention, shatters the status quo, redefines history and transforms lives.

Magnum Photos reaches a global audience and has established itself as the authentic, storytelling photographic brand. It remains loyal to its original values of uncompromising excellence, truth, respect and independence.

56 Great Quotes On Words

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Enjoy this collection of quotes about the power of Words.
“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” – Robin Williams
“Words to me were magic. You could say a word and it could conjure up all kinds of images or feelings or a chilly sensation or whatever. It was amazing to me that words had this power.” – Amy Tan
“Words are containers for power, you choose what kind of power they carry.” Joyce Meyer
“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” – Rudyard Kipling
“Words are loaded pistols.” – Jean-Paul Sartre
“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” ― Aldous Huxley
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