ClearView Plus

Get rid of a haze and add intensity to your photos in just a few clicks

Cypress Swamp, USA

Shooting settings:

Camera: Sony ILCE-7RM4
Lens: 400mm f/4.5
Parameters: ISO 200 - 1/25 - f/8 - 105mm

Image processing:

DxO PhotoLab 6

We all want crisp, clear photos, but nature has a habit of getting in the way.

Haze, mist, rain, fog, smoke, and smog all reduce the transparency of the air, lowering the contrast and lessening the detail, no matter how good your kit, or your technique. Shooting through water can have the same effect.

In all cases, it can leave images looking weak and washed out.

In these situations, DxO ClearView is the tool you need. It automatically analyzes the image, reducing haze and recovering contrast and detail. Then you can increase or decrease the effect with a simple slider.

What is haze?

To understand how ClearView Plus works, we first need to appreciate what haze is and the way it affects contrast.

Haze is characterized by the dispersion of light by particles in the air. Even on a clear day, the haze created by scattered light is very visible on objects that are more than two miles away. This is called ‘dry haze.’

When haze is created by the dispersion of light via water particles, we call it mist. If visibility is reduced to less than half a mile, we call it ‘fog.’

Namib desert, Namibia

Shooting settings:

Camera: Panasonic DC-G9
Lens: 50 – 200mm f/2.8
Parameters: ISO 400 - 1/6400 - f/5 - 100mm

Image processing:

DxO PhotoLab 6

The diagram below shows how haze is caused. A portion of the light reflected by a subject into the lens – in this case, the light reflected by the building – is lost because it is absorbed or scattered by particles in the air. In the diagram, this is represented by the yellow arrows. As the light is scattered, the subject appears darker, as though the sun were somehow less bright or the exposure time were shorter.

To compound matters, it’s not just light reflected by the subject that’s being scattered. In this case, light from the sun is also redirected by the particles in the air, this time towards the camera. In the diagram, this is represented by the blue arrows. The redirected sunlight leads to parasitic light in the photo. Areas that were made to appear darker as a result of scattered light are also made to appear fainter as a result of parasitic light.

How ClearView Plus removes haze and recreates contrast

In theory, to remove haze, you would need to know three things: the distance between the camera and each point in the scene; the amount of scattering; and the properties of the light source. Of course, in the real world, this information is not available in a photograph.

France

Shooting settings:

Camera: Leica Q 116
Lens: 28mm f/1.5
Parameters: ISO 100 - 1/2500 - f/3.5 - 28mm

Image processing:

DxO PhotoLab 6

To fix haze, DxO ClearView analyzes each region of the image to calculate the loss of definition. It then carefully stretches the contrast so that the rectified image contains pure colors or full black and full white. This effectively removes the haze while keeping results natural.

Not just for landscapes

ClearView Plus isn’t just good at bringing contrast back to landscape images; it’s also a fantastic tool for creating intensity in a portrait.

Paris

Shooting settings:

Camera: NIKON D850
Lens: 24 - 70mm f/2.8
Parameters: ISO 2000 - 1/200s - f/2.8 - 44mm

Image processing:

DxO PhotoLab 6

ClearView Plus

Get rid of a haze and add intensity to your photos in just a few clicks

We all want crisp, clear photos, but nature has a habit of getting in the way.

What is haze?

How ClearView Plus removes haze and recreates contrast

Not just for landscapes

DxO PhotoLab 6

DxO PhotoLab ⁶