Dehaze Do's and Don'ts

In Adobe Lightroom and Camera Raw, there’s a useful but underrated tool called Dehaze. As its name suggests, Dehaze is meant to remove haze from your photographs. Personally, I like to use this tool for something completely different. Watch the video below to learn more!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIzA6PIWHqA

If you have any trouble watching the video above, you can also watch it here. 

What is the Difference Between Clarity, Texture, and Dehaze? 

The Clarity, Texture, and Dehaze sliders are all in the same section, which can make it difficult to figure out which slider is appropriate for your photographs. Here’s a basic overview of each slider and what it does:

• Clarity focuses mainly on boosting midtone contrast. This can make your photo look “punchier” and more defined. However, if overdone, it can make everything look harsh and unnatural, especially when it comes to portrait photography.

• Texture enhances fine details but doesn't add too much contrast. Of the three tools, Texture produces the weakest effect.

• Dehaze cuts through atmospheric haze, fog, or smoke by increasing overall contrast and saturation. Of the three tools, Dehaze is the strongest—think of it as a sledgehammer. If you're not careful when using it, you can easily wreck your photos!

With all three sliders, when you slide to the right you add more of the effect, but when you slide to the left you subtract the effect. So, for example, sliding Dehaze to the right increases contrast, while sliding left decreases contrast (I often call this "positive" vs. "negative" Dehaze). While sliding right is the most common use for all three, photographers often use negative Dehaze, Clarity, or Texture to soften contrast and details. Why? They do this to create a "painterly" effect for their photos.

Dehaze is Designed to Cut Through Haze and Fog — But Should You?

Hazy landscapes often lack visual clarity and contrast. Dehaze was designed to boost contrast in such scenes, to give your hazy photos more "pop." When you move the Dehaze slider to the right, your photograph will start to look more striking. (This isn’t always a good thing, but it can be useful for photos that are very flat.) When you move the slider to the left, you’ll get the opposite effect: a hazier photograph. 

But here's the thing: when I have hazy or foggy conditions, I typically prefer the "softer" look that these conditions create. Sometimes, I might use a little Dehaze to boost contrast in these images, but more often than not, I leave Dehaze alone (or maybe even pull the slider a little bit to the left to soften the scene even more).  

So, I often don't use Dehaze to deal with the type of situation that Dehaze is explicitly designed to deal with. If I'm not using Dehaze to dehaze my photos, what am I using it for?

Using Dehaze for Stormy Skies and Water Texture

My favorite uses for the Dehaze tool have nothing to do with haze at all. For me, the best uses of the Dehaze slider are to make stormy skies and moving water look more dramatic in my photos.

Instead of going for global adjustments, I prefer to use a mask to enhance specific parts of my photos. This is a highly effective technique that can introduce drama to the sky or water without making the entire photo look harsh. All you need to do is create a mask, paint over the area you’d like to enhance, and adjust the Dehaze slider for the desired look.

Bonus Tip: Keep in mind that the Dehaze tool is known for increasing saturation, which may enhance certain colors that ruin the overall aesthetic of your photo. If that happens, just use the Saturation slider in your mask to pull those colors back down.

Creative Uses in Black and White Photography

In black-and-white, contrast is king. The unsubtle contrast boost created by the Dehaze slider can easily give your black-and-white images a punchy and dramatic look. I often use Dehaze more aggressively when converting to black-and-white compared to my color editing. Part of the reason is that I don't have to worry about the weird color shifts that sometimes result from Dehaze when editing in monochrome, but mostly it's just because I love the way Dehaze looks in black-and-white (you can learn more by checking out my Black & White Photography Course). 

Conclusion

Like most tools in Adobe Lightroom and Camera Raw, Dehaze should be used with caution. If you don’t overdo it, you’re likely to get pretty impressive results. Personally, I mostly use positive Dehaze to enhance the drama of stormy skies and bring out more texture in motion-blurred water. I also occasionally shift the Dehaze slider to negative to slightly further soften already hazy or foggy scenes. 

How do you like to use Dehaze? Let me know in the comments!