Haze Removal on non-contiguous parts of image

[Simul8R]

My daughter took some engagement photos for a friend. In some of these the foreground is clear but the background contains a lot of haze. Unfortunately the background view also appears in gaps between the subjects legs and the Haze Removal filter does not recognize this area as background. I have tried making a background selection and applying the filter to that but it makes no difference. The filter only appears to apply depth to the contiguous part of the image.

Is there anyway to apply this filter, or even a way to affect the the depth map produced by the Haze Removal filter. I’ve attached a before and after image to show the issue. I have blurred out the subjects for their privacy.

[Paul Mudditt]

I think you will have to try cutting the people out temporarily then inpainting where they are standing then apply haze removal then add the people back into the image. Anyway, worth a try if you're stuck.

[DM1]

Making selection between legs and exporting as a separate layer, then applying haze reduction to that layer will see an improvement. Place the exported layer above original layer to restore effect. Tone mapping each layer slightly after  dehazing seemed to help.