Unexpected Guest Tests Adobe Lightroom's New Dehaze Feature
Adobe just released their latest Camera Raw v.9.1. As CR and Lightroom share the same raw processing engine, the new feature set is shared between platforms. One of the latest tools is a Dehaze feature that can be found in LR's Develop module under "Effects."
Recently I experienced a unique test case of how the tool may be able to somewhat rescue images shot under less-than-ideal conditions. This morning I awoke to what sounded like a burglar at the back of our house. Here's what I shot quickly through our deck's double-paned glass and screen door slider:
It was thrilling to be standing there with just a couple of layers of glass and a Canon 5DIII between man and young bear. American Black Bear, that is. Here you can see him extending a tongue to get at the black oil sunflower seeds from a bird feeder that we forgot to bring in last night (we're normally fastidious about this).
The following before and afters of an earlier shot in the series gives you a hint at what the Dehaze tool, in combination with some basic tonal adjustments, can accomplish. I didn't spend too much time on this, yet I was still able to get somewhere with the original raw image data:
Not bad for a seriously optically compromised image.
Oh, and here's some of the small wreckage that remained after the bear saddled over the deck's railing, climbed 10 feet back down to the ground, and disappeared again into the woods. Note the drool (bear, not mine) on the inside of the feeder:
I can still hear the crunching noise that his teeth made while putting them through that plastic. I'm glad it wasn't my arm.
