Photography Technique: Dehazing my Sea Turtle Photos

Just less than a year ago, I took photos of sea turtles in Hawaii and I posted them here. They're okay, a selection of my better ones, but a photographer friend suggested I try dehazing them. It certainly helps to know there is such a thing! Today, I decided to try it.

Now, I use GIMP and not that much. I decided some time ago that learning to take reasonable photos made more sense than learning how to fix them. However I am becoming proficient at levelling horizons -- I guess we figure out what we need.

I chose images that I didn't post last time and they didn't turn out too bad. Some were much poorer quality.

Since there is no dehaze button, a quick search led me to white balance and color levels, and I fiddled with those! On the first four photos, I used the automatic white balance. It seems to work. Below, the murky before photo of this one.

Color levels are a little trickier and required more practice. It helped that the original was not so murky. Overall, I managed to get a richer look, below.

I'm posting this as a demonstration that might help someone else.

References

kansuze's Pacific Green Sea Turtle ~ Chelonia mydas

Images

Photos taken with my Canon SX620 HS in Reeds Bay, Hilo, Hawaii, USA

@kansuze