Haze Filter

[Peter069]

I am scanning my 1970's 35mm colour slides and have come across a problem with using the Haze Filter.  Some of my slides are of helicopters,  these of course have rotor blades which create an obvious horizontal straight edge, when trying to apply the Haze Filter it will deal with the background sky above the rotor blade but will not play ball under the rotor blade.

I cannot find an obvious solution,  ideas to solve this would be welcome, simple would be better.  

[John Rostron]

Could you not apply a mask  to the Haze filter layer so as to exclude the Haze Filter from that area?

John

 

[Peter069]

Hi John, thanks for your reply.  Not sure what you mean 'exclude'?  Perhaps it's my explanation, I want the Haze Filter to work not only above the rotor blades but also below the rotor blades where there is also sky.  Currently I can de-haze sky above the blades but the filter ignores the sky below the blades, I assume this is due to the strong horizontal line the rotor blades create.

Peter

[firstdefence]

I think John means exclude (mask) the rotor blades and apply the dehaze filter to see if that would help the dehaze filter move past the rotors. I could be wrong 

A screenshot might also help 

[Peter069]

Hello, gotcha, I'll give it a go to see if that will solve the problem.

P

[photophart]

What you are seeing under the rotors is the violent and chaotic disruption of air molecules on the downdraft side of the rotors, essentially small compressed air lenses, similar to what you see in the heat plume of a jet engine.

 

[Peter069]

Hi photophart, as the helicopters are parked and neither the engines or rotors are operational your idea does not hold water in this case, sorry!

 

 

 

[carl123]

Can you upload the image you are working with?

[Peter069]

I have attempted to mask the rotor blades in my helicopter and have not had much success with the method.  I'll have to find another way to sort this. 

[Peter069]

Hi carl123,  I have just attempted 2 uploads of the jpg version of the photo I am trying to sort out, however both attempts have bounced error message ended -200?

Even drag and drop bounced, not sure what the issue is but will try later today.

 

 

 

[carl123]

I think large (width) images can cause that error code

Reduce the width of your image to 2000px and it should upload OK

 

 

[Peter069]

@ carl123 here is a an unaltered copy of the photo in jpg format.

P

 

[Madame]

You could use a median blur filter and then paint out the helicopter from the mask.

[firstdefence]

What is your desired intention when using the haze removal tool?

[Peter069]

@Madame thank you will give it a go.

@firstdefence, to remove the haze from the sky, the slides are over 50 years old, the film Kodachrome and many of my old slides seem to require haze removal.

P

 

[carl123]

I cant see anything in that image that I would initially think that the Haze Removal filter would be useful for

By applying the filter I can see that the top of the sky gets slightly more blue and more even in colour but the bottom of the sky does not.

I can only assume you are looking to create a more even blueness to all the sky as shown below. (which was done with a mask and a new sky pixel layer not the Haze Removal tool).

If that is not the case please advise further

 

[firstdefence]

What about a sky replacement?

[Peter069]

@carl123:  Thank you, I was only trying to improve the sky but got stuck where the blades cross in the horizontal plane.

@firstdefence: I could probably have done that but I'm sorta old school in some ways, just trying to get the best out of the photo that I took many moons ago.

Thank you all for helping me and for your suggestions, I am still new to Affinity Photo and I'm torn between trying to get my slides scanned and also to process the images my scanner software produces .  Perhaps I should slow down a bit and take one step at a time.

I will consider this post closed now and go back to step 1, 'slow down'

Thanks ALL

Peter

 

 

 

 

[firstdefence]

Ok, I understand, a few passing comments...

Don't forget the inpainting tool and spot healing tool to touch up the sky if you have dust marks, Try applying a gaussian blur and then add a small amount of noise back in and have fun with selections and masking you can save your selections.

Good luck

[Peter069]

@firstdefence thank you for your 'passing comments' much appreciated.

I'm good with touch ups, using the spot healing brush for dust marks etc, my old colour slides are pretty dirty having been dragged around the world for 23 years (ex RAF).

Can an 'Old Fella' be super cheeky and ask how you created the mask and the pixel layer to improve the sky in my image. As I said in a previous post I'm old school and do not want to "Photoshop (apologies to Affinity)" my images, I just want to create the best possible end result of the original slide, many of which are memories of a life once enjoyed.

Peter

 

[Peter069]

@carl123 following on from your post and from the info @firstdefence I have been working on my layers skills.  I have the gist of the way they work and how I have been screwing up some of my slide scans.

The only thing I'm having trouble with is obtaining the smoothness of the sky that you achieved with my image.  Could you enlighten me on how you achieved that please.

Thanks

Peter

[carl123]

It's simply a new pixel layer filled with a blue colour and placed at the bottom of the layer stack.

The previous blue sky was simply cut out of the original image leaving a transparent area where the new "sky" was allowed to show through.

The new pixel layer was also given an Add Noise filter of about 3% to help it blend into the image better

[firstdefence]

3 hours ago, Peter069 said:

Can an 'Old Fella' be super cheeky and ask how you created the mask and the pixel layer to improve the sky in my image.

Hi Peter, I used the Magic wand to make selections, I do that in stages having the add button selected in the context menu. If you try to select everything all in one go it will overflow into area's you don't want selected but its easy enough to remove those areas you over run into. I'll make a short video later when I get home. showing you how I made the selection.

[Peter069]

@carl123 thanks for that, I have found it difficult at times to control the Selection Brush Tool, the online videos make it look easy! In particular the rotor blades being so thin and the cockpit area as it's glass and see through and not solid..........Perhaps it's me?

@firstdefence is going to show me by video how he deals with this so I look forward to his offering.

I must say that I really do appreciate your responses to what may seem second nature to you guys, me I find some of this a bit 'double dutch' but I'm sure I'll crack it eventually and at least become proficient with Affinity Photo.

I have a least learnt today how to correctly use layers, it's just getting to grips with the variety of them. 

Peter

 

[mdruziak]

Try using the Denoise filter.  I assume the film grain (or maybe scanner digital noise) in the sky is what you are trying to remove.