Heat haze

[Inchiquin]

I'm sure this question has been asked before but I don't recall anything recently to search for. Does QC differentiate between heat haze and interpolation artefacts? I have a photo that shows mild heat haze effects, e.g. on window frames, that might on a cursory glance be mistaken for interpolation artefacts. It's an unusual and difficult-to-obtain view of the subject so I would really like to submit it but I don't want to risk my 5-year QC pass record if it's going to be a definite no-no.

 

Alan

[spacecadet]

I failed QC for heat haze years ago, so I'm wary too.

Try downsizing to 3250 long side and see if it's still iffy.

[Bill Kuta]

I have a couple of heat haze shots on Alamy (long shots down a summer boardwalk). Of course, I don't know if QC looked at those images in particular, but I made sure I mentioned heat haze in the caption and keywords.

[Mr Standfast]

Search for heat haze and you get 5582 examples, so I think qc will see the difference between haze and artefacts. I like Bill's idea of mentioning it in the caption. Good luck!

[Allan Bell]

 

QC, I've heard, do not look at captions or other information with the image. Understandable I suppose as it would add quite a bit of time in extra investigation.

 

Allan

 

 

[Alex Ramsay]

I had to delete a small number of images from a recent trip to Iceland because of heat haze, improbably. All shot at 200mm across a heather landscape on a sunny day - the ground must have warmed up quickly.

 

Alex

[Inchiquin]

On 30/06/2019 at 15:49, spacecadet said:

I failed QC for heat haze years ago, so I'm wary too.

Try downsizing to 3250 long side and see if it's still iffy.

 

Thanks for that suggestion Mark. It's certainly improved the quality and it might just do the trick. I'm going to risk it anyway. It's only pride that makes me want to protect my QC record.

 

Alan

[Bryan]

Presumably it passed Alan?

 

I recently uploaded W2AM9A taken with a short telephoto. The castle in the background and, in particular the sign to the left, show clear signs of heat haze wobble, but the front of the locomotive is clear.  Maybe the trick is to try to include a foreground object that isn't affected by the haze?

[Inchiquin]

On 17/07/2019 at 15:49, Bryan said:

 

Presumably it passed Alan?

 

I recently uploaded W2AM9A taken with a short telephoto. The castle in the background and, in particular the sign to the left, show clear signs of heat haze wobble, but the front of the locomotive is clear.  Maybe the trick is to try to include a foreground object that isn't affected by the haze?

 

 

Hasn't gone through yet. I was waiting for permission to use some photos that were taken on someone else's premises before submitting the batch.

 

There are objects in the foreground of mine but I don't think there's an issue in the case of yours because the train is obviously the main focus of the picture, whereas in mine it's the building in the distance, and the foreground is peripheral.

 

Anyway, we will see when it finally gets submitted.

 

Alan

[Ed Rooney]

On 01/07/2019 at 09:47, Allan Bell said:

 

QC, I've heard, do not look at captions or other information with the image. Understandable I suppose as it would add quite a bit of time in extra investigation.

 

Allan

 

 

 

I remember that too, Allan.

 

What about the dehaze in LR?

[Inchiquin]

13 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

What about the dehaze in LR?

 

 

I'm using LR6 so I didn't know about the dehazer. I've just looked it up and someone has done a preset for LR6 which replicates it. However, I get the impression that it's designed to make a hazy image crisper and not to remove the effect of heat haze, which is the slight rippled effect it gives to distant objects.

 

Alan

[Allan Bell]

1 hour ago, Inchiquin said:

 

I'm using LR6 so I didn't know about the dehazer. I've just looked it up and someone has done a preset for LR6 which replicates it. However, I get the impression that it's designed to make a hazy image crisper and not to remove the effect of heat haze, which is the slight rippled effect it gives to distant objects.

 

Alan

 

As far as I can tell the "Dehaze" function is not to correct heat haze. But is design to help clear images which have light haze such as when an image is taken directly into the sun.

 

Allan

 

[Ed Rooney]

I've not had a need to use Dehaze yet, but I think Alan and Allan are right. 

[MizBrown]

4 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

I've not had a need to use Dehaze yet, but I think Alan and Allan are right. 

 

My experience of using it is that it increases some aspect of contrast.  Works for distance atmospheric haze as well as light haze.  Doesn't appear to work with "texture" but does appear to work with "clarity."  

[Ed Rooney]

"Texture" is another new tool on LR Classic CC that I haven't had time to look into yet, Rebecca. There are not many images I shoot regularly that I can't enhance to where I want them with the tools in LR, PS, and NIK.  

[Allan Bell]

4 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

"Texture" is another new tool on LR Classic CC that I haven't had time to look into yet, Rebecca. There are not many images I shoot regularly that I can't enhance to where I want them with the tools in LR, PS, and NIK.  

 

Just been reading about "Texture" slider. Apparently it works in the mid contrast range and increases skin texture, as with a snake for example, without affecting clarity and overall contrast.

 

Allan

 

[R Scott James]

On ‎17‎/‎07‎/‎2019 at 09:49, Bryan said:

Presumably it passed Alan?

 

I recently uploaded W2AM9A taken with a short telephoto. The castle in the background and, in particular the sign to the left, show clear signs of heat haze wobble, but the front of the locomotive is clear.  Maybe the trick is to try to include a foreground object that isn't affected by the haze?

Alan please keep up updated if you pass QC,

 

Bryan  love that shot WAM9A  The wires above the train and the castle in the back ground,  the jumbled confusion of the wires and the compressed nature of the image  by using a 200mm lens , love that style of composition.  

[Inchiquin]

17 hours ago, R Scott James said:

 

Alan please keep up updated if you pass QC,

 

 

 

 

Yes, I fully intend to. I've had an awful lot on my plate recently and still haven't got round to submitting.

 

Alan

[Inchiquin]

Well it passed. I think it was probably Mark's suggestion to downsize that tipped the balance.

 

Alan

[R Scott James]

Thank You for the update, I submitted a image yesterday that has a lot of water vapor above a retaining pond. SS rejected it for noise, but Alamy passed it, I wonder if SS actually has a live human look at the submissions. 

[Marianne]

I wrote an article about the new Texture slider last month but it hasn't been published yet. My editor is supposed to let me know when it goes live, I'll post a link. Great slider. It really helps with architecture and landscape images bringing out the details without adding noise. 

 

It's also great for portraits, by using it to lower texture - so skin looks more natural than when you take away clarity. My article focuses on landscape and nature images. 

 

On the haze front, I just uploaded some photos taken back in 2011 as the sun began to rise in Sweden turning the white sky pink and golden. They were with a small macro site that folded a while ago, so I wanted to get them back online. A couple had some light and atmospheric haze and while the other site liked that, I reprocessed them and the dehaze slider helped a bit, without losing the feel of the fog over the trees and hills , since that was important to the photo.  I still shrunk it down a bit just to be sure it'd pass. I really hate doing that - I remember when I had to make my 6MP photos 48MB and now I'm supposedly a far better photographer, yet I'm shrinking down my 12-42MP files to 17MB - but it's just easier to upload once and not worry about having to get a rejection and start over. 

 

I think sometimes noise is in the eye of the beholder. I'm so tired of pixel-peeping, but I'm too much of a perfectionist to stop LOL. 

[Inchiquin]

4 hours ago, Marianne said:

 

I think sometimes noise is in the eye of the beholder. I'm so tired of pixel-peeping, but I'm too much of a perfectionist to stop LOL. 

 

 

The problem with heat haze, which is what I was worried about, is that it shows as distortion rather than noise.

 

Alan

[spacecadet]

14 hours ago, R Scott James said:

Thank You for the update, I submitted a image yesterday that has a lot of water vapor above a retaining pond. SS rejected it for noise, but Alamy passed it, I wonder if SS actually has a live human look at the submissions. 

Why would you compete with yourself by putting the same image on two sites where the prices differ by a couple of orders of magnitude?

[Marianne]

On 09/08/2019 at 05:00, Inchiquin said:

 

The problem with heat haze, which is what I was worried about, is that it shows as distortion rather than noise.

 

Alan

 

Yes, I think that's why it's probably less of an issue since it's more obvious, whereas atmospheric haze can look like noise. Fortunately, all my images with atmospheric haze (taken back in 2011) passed quickly. I took them with a Nikon 70-200mm lens and my D700 from a moving boat at 4:30 in the morning - using an inexpensive lens I bought because I didn't want to tote my heavy and much better and sharper Sigma 50-500mm around Scandinavia and being half awake, I still got many shots that I loved. Here's one that I didn't shrink:

 

[R Scott James]

On 09/08/2019 at 09:14, spacecadet said:

Why would you compete with yourself by putting the same image on two sites where the prices differ by a couple of orders of magnitude? 

I feel, and I could be wrong, the SS has a different customer base of buyers that Alamy, Yes there is some cross over . I would be interested to know how many images Alamy sells in the states vs SS. Plus SS rejected the image so its only om Alamy.