P: Camera Raw/Lightroom: Dehaze altering the color-balance/white-balance of photos

[DougB PDX]

As much as I love the Dehaze slider, there is one thing about it that I absolutely HATE and that is when it decides to go psycho in altering the color-balance/white-balance of photos.

These example photos may not show up (I've had issues with photos disappearing from being uploaded), but here is one pair from earlier today... the tint setting on WB is just 50k apart, one click on the arrow key.. but the difference is HUGE.

All settings are identical between the 2 photos, the only change was hovering the mouse over the WB tint slider and pressing the up/down key once.. changing from 5850k to 5800k

I often get similar shifts going from consecutive, continuous-high photos from frame to frame with the exact same settings, no changes in wb settings, and it all seems related to the dehaze slider and the way it analyzes the photos.

Years ago, I thought I actually had a defective camera, as the photos would change biggly even using the same exact settings 0.1sec apart.  Eventually, I tracked down the cause.  The programming of the Dehaze feature.

So, the problem I wish they could figure out is some way to get Dehaze to not do massive shifts in WB

[DougB PDX]

Here are a couple of more examples... these are what I was describing using the same exact settings between 2 frames captured 0.1 seconds apart, but the dehaze tool causing them to look very different in color.

[DougB PDX]

and of course, it happens in the dry also.. this example isn't as big a swing because dehaze is fairly low (25).. with a higher dehaze setting, the color shift would be more significant.

IMHO, a properly functioning dehaze tool should not cause such massive color changes/shifts

[TangCanada]

To counter the effects of color shift, you can use the dehaze slider in photoshop camera raw filter , on a duplicate layer set to luminosity blend mode.

[DougB PDX]

Wow, thank you!!  Processing 30,000 photos in Lightroom, that will be a HUGE help!!

[Bob Somrak]

Seems like a bug

I have two photos that exhibit the same behavior with just a 50k temp change with a large dehaze.  It only happens at one spot on the temp slider.  Notice the large change in the Histogram.  If I am not on this spot than the histogram changes very little with 50k temp changes.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

In your first example Doug, if you take those two files into Camera Raw and apply identical settings, does Camera Raw exhibit the same color difference as Lightroom? 

Knowing that would help identify which team with which to file the bug. 

Additionally, would you be willing to send us the raw files with XMP data accompanying so that we can attach the me to the issue once we identify the correct team?

[DougB PDX]

Yes, doing the same thing in PS ACR.

I've emailed you the files.

[Bob Somrak]

Rikk,

I tried my examples in ACR and it exhibits the same behavior as in Lr.  Its odd the major change is in only one spot on the temp slider.

[DougB PDX]

I should add that it is very far from happening with every photo..  I see it happen maybe 100 or 1000 apart, but it appears to happen when when there is a lot of specific colors in a photo (I've seen it most often with yellows, greens, or oranges).. but I've never spent time trying to make it happen, I'm always trying to make it go away.. because I want consecutive photos to look the same, and having them look massively different because sometimes the dehaze tool goes overboard.

[Bob Somrak]

I agree it doesn't happen with all photos.  I got lucky and picked a couple with a lot of blue and yellow and orange where the result is EXTREME

[Bob Somrak]

Rikk

I did a little more experimenting 

I took one of the photos I posted above and did a reset and applied a Radial Filter over the whole photo and applied a large Dehaze and the issue also occurred using the Local Dehaze with a small change in Temp at one point on the Temp Slider.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

I've logged an issue with the Camera Raw team and attached your files, Doug. You can pull them offline if you like. 

[edmundgall]

Sarcasm - works so well on a help forum. 😕

[DougB PDX]

Edmond, I'm sorry I did not realize I needed to seek your opinion about what responses in my thread are acceptable to you or not.   Rather than focusing on your disapproval of sarcasm, maybe it would be more helpful going forward for folks to actually consider if their posts are truly helpful or not.   To be clear, I mean helpful to the person who started the topic and the program they are working in, not simply helpful to the ego/satisfaction of the person responding.

For example, this topic was about Lightroom (and ACR in LR), not Photoshop, therefore advice to respond to a software bug/problem by exporting images to a separate program isn't terribly useful or helpful when the purpose of Lightroom is to quickly process many photos with consistent results from frame to frame.

Simply put, the response did not contribute to diagnosing or solving the problem,

I said thank you, in case others reading my find the suggestion helpful, and illustrated specifically why it wasn't helpful to me.

Sorry if you were triggered.  I'll try to be sure my future responses to threads that you were not participating in do not offend you.

[Bob Somrak]

I think more people will agree with Edmund.

[TangCanada]

Your just full of it....

Never said you were processing 30,000 photos, which I find again that your just full of it...

You posted "Camera Raw/Lightroom" - Camera Raw refers to Photoshop.

You could have just shut up and let my answer be helpful to those processing an image or two in camera raw but no, you had to open your mouth and let us all be aware your just full of it....
even your 'wow thank you' smacks of sarcasm. Grow up.

[DougB PDX]

except that this was reporting a bug, and wanting Adobe to fix the bug..

which your response contributed nothing in that regard.

I love how people get SO butthurt when they were the problem in the first place. 

It isn't my fault that you were not smart enough to understand that Lightroom Classic refers to Lightroom Classic.. and that ACR does not equal Photoshop.. ACR is in both things, it is the engine.. and you probably missed, that I was correct in observing the bug is with the engine... and your response was of ZERO benefit.

Let me give you a hint... 

being sarcastic was being NICE to you..

ideally I'd have just been able to delete your response as it contributed nothing of value for confirming the bug, nor discussing the problem.

Maybe next time you'll pay attention and THINK about if you're really helping or not, because this had NOTHING to do with soliciting advice for countering the effects of the bug.

Yeah, 30,000 photos is a busy weekend...  my bad, didn't realize us large-volume event shooters needed to seek pre-approval from you or something.

[DougB PDX]

I love how your lack of basic comprehension = my need to grow up

[DougB PDX]

Rikk, I uploaded another photo (and xmp and dcp) to the OneDrive folder that are a good example.. and this is using a different model camera.. and the color jump point is different.. 5350 vs 5400

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

@doug, 

The team responded that they need two consecutive and very similar frames to compare. Can you provide?

[DougB PDX]

Sorry, notification of your post went into my spam email... I will add to the onedrive folder.. let me know if you need the link again and I'll email it to you

[Earth Oliver]

Rikk, has any progress been made with this issue? I'm grading a ton of sequences today which need heavy Dehaze, and the bug is making my job not possible.

[FlabbyWhiteBoyNZ]

I shot a series of timelapse photos - each one 8 seconds in duration with a second between them. Imported them into LrC and made some adjustments. Sync'd settings across the images and noticed that some of them look wildly different in colour to the ones that followed.

 Narrowed it down to just two consecutive images - one that was ultra-blue and the following one that looked more purply (I was after a more purple look so the blue one was not expected). Adjusted one setting at a time and found the Dehaze was the culprit. A Dehaze of 88 (yeah, I know - quite high) on one image made it blue and a Dehaze on the very next image (just 1 second later) was purply. Odd.

 Opened each image in PS and did a Dehaze of 88 on each in Camera Raw and was very surprised to see that they BOTH looked purply. So, from my variations of settings and applications, it appears that under SOME circumstances the Dehaze under LrC performs wildly different from that in Camera Raw in PS, and Dehaze in LrC can result in wildly varying results even for two consecutive images.

Attached image shows the Camera Raw Dehazed version of image 9204, then the LrC  Dehazed version of image 9204 (note how the Camera Raw Dehaze differs from the LrC Dehaze), Camera Raw Dehazed version of image 9205, then the LrC  Dehazed version of image 9205 (note how the Camera Raw Dehaze is the SAME as the LrC Dehaze).


, 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

egos and narcissism........zzzzzzzzzzz

[Michael J. Hoffman]

I noticed a similar problem to Mark Robinson above:

I have two photos, taken just a couple of minutes apart, and from the same location. When I add a Dehaze adjustment in the Develop Module, the images behave in wildly different ways. The only significant difference between the two images is the illuminated sign post, which was cycling through different colors as shown below. Could the color in the sign post be creating the wildly different Dehaze behaviors here?

In the first snapshot, you can see the two photos as imported, with no Basic adjustments and only the camera profile, lens corrections and a small noise reduction applied. In the second snapshot, I've added Dehaze +30 to both images. One goes strongly magenta, the other strongly blue.

Any thoughts as to why this happens? I really like the magenta sky in the second image, and was trying to replicate it in the first one. Instead, it seems I stumbled into a bug.

Notes: Windows 10, LrC 9.3, Canon EOS R raw files.