Light is an important aspect to be considered in photography. If the light isn’t good enough, then your photos will certainly fail to standout. A photographer always considers lighting conditions before shooting. However, while travelling, you cannot predict or assume when the light is best and being left with no choice, you have to click them.

I recently traveled to Delhi and knowing that the place is foggy, I wasn’t disappointed with it as I knew a technique of removing the haze from my photographs using Photoshop. I clicked everything I could and I was happy enough at the end of the day. I used the Photoshop technique and uploaded the photos on Flickr. One of my friend asked me how the shots were this clear even though Delhi has a very bad light with all the fog. So, this is why I decided to come up with a Photoshop tutorial on how to remove the blue hue from the atmosphere in your photos.

The technique is pretty simple and should take not more that 5mins of your time. Firstly, open the photo in Photoshop (I’m using Photoshop CS5, so you may notice some difference with the user interface)

Before Processing

After Processing

Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels… and create a new Level layer.

You’ll see a graph which is called as the histogram. It indicates the ‘brightness’ of the photo by letting you know how many pixels are dark and how many are light. The left part of the histogram defines the darkness and the right side indicates highlights.

You may notice something called Channels. The channel consists of 3 standard colors, RGB (Red, Green, Blue). We have to individually alter the levels of each color. Refer the screenshot below to get the exact idea.

Move the left pointer exactly below the histogram where it starts and then move the right pointer where the histogram ends.

Repeat the procedure for green and blue.

Once done, you’ll notice a huge difference from what your photo looked like to what it looks now. Once you’ve done with all the colors, you can adjust the brightness and contrast by moving the arrows in the RGB channel.

Alternatively, you can increase/decrease the brightness/contrast, increase the vibrance and sharpen your photo to enhance it further.

Well, now that you’ve learnt how to remove the haze the 5-miniute-way, its time to learn the 10-seconds-way Just click on the Auto button and Photoshop will do the rest! Don’t curse for I told this in the last. Learning the procedure first is better than taking the short-cut.

Compare the difference between the original photos and the processed ones.

Curves are back. No, it ain’t about the Volkswagen Beetle, but it’s about Photoshop Photoshop, when compared to other image editing tools, is the ultimate of all. In fact, you can call it the King of image editing/processing. Photoshop is bundled with lot of features and tools which are explored and unexplored, known and unknown; I’m sure most of you wouldn’t be aware of all the tools and features in Photoshop unless you’re the developer or an hardcore photoshop’er.

Adjustment Tool consist of various tools – Brightness/Contrast, Levels, Curves, Hue/Saturation, Color Balance, Exposure etc, with which you can process your images better. If you’d left me with no choice but to choose one tool out all, then I would certainly select Curves, without any effort.

Below is an example of before and after tuning my shot using curves.

Note: Create a new fill or Adjustment layer before using the adjustment tools (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves Or at the bottom of the Layers panel). That way, it enables quick alteration or removal at any time during the color correction process.

So, what does Curves offer you?
The curve tool is one such tool that helps you tune your images and intensify the mood, though you think you’ve taken pretty neat shots, but needs a little adjustment to make it look even better. Curves allow you to adjust the color and tonality (contrast) by changing the shape of the curve. The upper section of the curve represents the area of lower contrast and the lower section represents the area of higher contrast. Dragging the curve upwards/downwards it lightens or darkens the image respectively.

Curves can be used on individual color channels by selecting the color from the drop-down menu. We can selectively increase or decrease the amount of a color cast in the red, green, and blue channels to achieve perfect balance.

Friends on Flickr asked me how I did this. So I thought let me share it by posting a tutorial here. This is my first tutorial that I’m writing. So please bare with my teaching

I’ve used keyboard shortcuts here to make the process faster.

Step 1: Open the image you want to work on. In this tutorial I’ll be using the image below.

Crop the image if you would like to…

Step 2: Desaturate the image. Press Ctrl+Shift+U to do so…

Now create a new layer by pressing Ctrl+Shift+N and change the blending mode of Layer 1 to Color. (Important Step!)

Select Color from the drop down menu. See below.

Step 3: Now select the Brush tool (press B) and set it’s hardness to 3% or below that.

Step 4: Now, select colors from the Swatches palette (Window>Swatches) and start painting on the part you would like to. You gotta zoom in to paint it perfectly.

This process could be time consuming but you can color it perfectly if you have patience and time.

An alternative to that is, select Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) and select the area you want to paint. Check the screen shot below.

Start coloring/painting after the selection is done. The results obtained can be seen below.

Step 5: Continue the process until your finally done with the painting. Save it.

If you want to continue playing with the colors then open Hue/Saturation by pressing Ctrl+U and start playing with Hue You’ll end up with some cool colors

Step 6: Your done! Save it, close Photoshop and get back to work

P.S Please don’t curse or scold me if you didn’t understand or it was too tough to follow. If your stuck with something then do ask by leaving a comment below

You can view my Flickr Photostream and follow me on Twitter to know more interesting things