Playing With Photoshop CC 2015 Dehaze

Since the recent release of Adobe Photoshop (PS) CC 2015/Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR) CC 2015 I've seen several articles about what's new.  One of the more interesting (and creative) additions is the Dehaze tool.  In LR it can be found in the Effects Panel and in PS it's found by going to or going through Adobe Camera Raw (ACR)  (Filter/Camera Raw Filter).  I'd highly recommend turning the Layer into a Smart Object (Filter/Convert For Smart Filters) so you can go back and forth from Layers to ACR at will.  The primary use I've seen folks talk about with the Dehaze tool is in landscape photography.  Crank the slider to the right and the haze over distant parts of the landscape become much cleaner and more contrasty.  You may have noticed that that's not exactly what's going on in today's image.  To get an idea of what's going on, hot the "Read More".

To get to where today's image is, if I had moved the Dehaze slider to the right, I would have had to shoot the flower in a dense fog or something.  Instead, it's a "normal" shot, nicely exposed with good selective Depth of Field.  The Dehaze tool has been moved slightly to the left.  About 30 points.  The result is an in focus, sharp, soft image.  It's important to specify that the image is in focus and is sharp.  If you look you can see that it is not a blown frame.  It is a deliberate frame that's been tinkered with in post processing.

One use for such an image could be in a wedding album.  Either as a repeated opening page defining sections of the album or perhaps a background for a page with multiple candid shots.  A front flap of thank you cards might another use tying the card to the theme of the album.  

Advertising might be another way to use the image.  Any situation where a soft image behind text would add interest is a candidate for thing type of treatment.  Imagination is the key to putting an image like this work.