De Haze, De Haze

We are currently on a vacation in the Canadian Rockies celebrating the 50th wedding anniversary of Mrs. Eyes and I.    Flying into Calgary last Tuesday, the pilot on our Alaska Airlines flight announced that visibility at the airport was very poor due to the dozens of fires burning in British Columbia.  That was the first thought I’d given to concerns that the smoke might interfere with the incredible views we hoped to see around Banff and Canmore.   Our concerns were confirmed as we pulled into our hotel, the Blackstone Lodge.  The towering mountains visible from our room were vague silhouettes against the gray, smoke-filled sky.   By Thursday, when we took our first tour of the Banff area, the haze had lifted some but my photographs were hardly what I’d hoped for, color faded toward gray by the smoke in the air.   It is interesting how the human eye can perceive the beauty of a scene but the camera can only capture what it sees.

Back in our room Thursday night, I spent some time looking at photo correction software that might help remove the have from my photos.  I suppose it was no surprise that a free application for android from Adobe Photoshop called Photoshop Explorer includes dehazingas an option.   I downloaded the app to my tablet and tried it on a few photos from our day around Banff.   It would be an exaggeration to say the processing produced pictures of the same beauty as if the smoke wasn’t present but it was certainly produced reasonable memories of what we saw.  Here are a few examples:

Hoodoos along the Bow River:

Riding up to the Summit of Sulphur Mountain on the Gondola:

Sometimes, if life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.  And if life gives you smoke, you Dehaze with Photoshop.  Pretty cool.

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Tags: Photo Correction, photography, Photoshop, travel, vacations

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