Splotchy Fog

[Luminous Visions]

Can anybody direct me to some help on fixing splotchy fog?

I shot the following digital photo on a foggy day:
Single autumn tree against foggy background. Tree has some reddish leaves, otherwise the rest of the image is pretty washed out and flat from the fog.
Shot on a tripod at ISO 800 F8 1/640 sec exposure.
Shot as 5556x3704 TIFF (approx 17MG orig file size)
White balance on Nikon D100 set to overcast.
Full frame matrix metered withi no flash.
No other on-camera corrections (color cast, compression, etc.)
Editing in Elements 2.0 in .PSD format

In the image blue and pink spots appear in areas of the fog that should basically be white. The further from the tree (centered in image) the more pronounced the splotches.

I've tried Gaussian blur to make them less pronounced, but it doesn't really help? Selecting all but the tree and then using "color variations" to lower pink and blue has unacceptable results since the effect becomes less pronounced closer to the tree. Selecting the splotches and using "replace color" to replace the spots with a lightened grey with lowered saturation washes out the entire image.

So, two questions:
1) Any ideas why this happened? This camera is generally very good and can photograph great details. Why would it mess up fog?
2) How can I fix this?

Thanks for any ideas, or links to threads that might address it.

Steve

[Wendy]

Steve,

It may be easier if you posrt a link to your image ... if you don't have webspace you can use:

http://www.pixentral.com/index.php

Just upload it, copy the URL it gives you then let us know the link :)

Wendy

[Luminous Visions]

Image is at:

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=1VoOH8OS9300yUf4WSQGdFbFokv4r1

It's a relatively small JPG version but the splotches are definately there.

Regards,

Steve

[Wendy]

Steve,

The link doesn't seem to be working ...


Wendy

[Luminous Visions]

Hmmm. I clicked right into the image by the link. It takes me to the top left corner of the image.

Here it is again.

www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=1VoOH8OS9300yUf4WSQGdFbFokv4r1

Regards,

Steve

[Mary]

I think the problem is probably the size - I resized it - does the smaller version still illustrate the problem you are having?

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=14LPvuSluqLohbdUclLyr9pEUbMBT1

[Luminous Visions]

Yes. It's especially pronounced at the right border above the snow line. It gets less pronouned towards center-image, then more so again as you move left to the border again.

[Mary]

Guessing (way off the top of my head) it might have something to do with light refraction and the moisture in the fog. Digital cameras are notorious for getting very mixed up with light.

I am sure others will have more input on both the cause and hopefully the solution.

I will follow the thread with interest on this one.

[Carbone]

1) Any ideas why this happened? This camera is generally very good and can photograph great details. Why would it mess up fog?
2) How can I fix this?


1) Dust on the sensor ? I know nothing of Nikon camera (I'm a Canon guy), but when I get some odd coloured spots, it usually is dust on the sensor. If you've never cleaned it before, be sure to read the canera's manual before proceeding.

2) With the Clone tool. You select a similarly looking area and clone it over the spots.

Ray

[Jodi Frye]

Kind of difficult to tell by the image but other than what others have mentioned here.... to me, it just looks like typical digital noise that occurs in low light ...try the reduce noise filter. Filter>noise>reduce color noise. then use a feathered lasso tool and make a rough selection in those areas and use a gaussian blur to reduce the splochyness. Creata a new layer below your image in the same color whitish of fog....this way when you apply the gaussian blur to the image it will not appear like thinned out pixels.

[Jodi Frye]

I meant to say....Your image is breathtaking ! Very beautiful. You have a wonderful eye :)

[BrainySmurf]

I'm curious how you got a 20 mega pixel image out of a 6 mega pixel camera. :?: However it was done probably accounts for the noise.

I agree with Jodi, that's a real nice image - even with the blue tinge.

Rick

[Luminous Visions]

Thanks for the tips. I'll try them when I get a few minutes and report back.

As for the 20 megapixel image, I'm not sure on that one. I've never done the math before but it does come out to be 20m. My only guess is the size change happened when I saved from the original TIFF image (17.3 Mb file size, pixel size unknown) to the Elements .PSD format. I'm going to have to compare some originals to edited images and see.

[Luminous Visions]

And thank you for the nice compliments, too!!! :D