Morning light shot ruined? by circ pol.

[dgberg]

Got a few decent shots from Skyline Drive with good morning light but had my circ. pol. on my wide angle. (Of course I know better.)
Any easy way to salvage these or maybe its more work then its worth.
D800E w/ Zeiss 21

[francois]

Dan,
No idea how to fix your issue but I'd be very interesting to lear how to rescue this photo. I have quite a few old ones that exhibit the same problem.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Alas, I think the solution (for future) is: Never carry a circ-pol with you that fits a wide-angle lens.   

[Ken Bennett]

I have had some limited success using a brush to paint in the darker sky color (sampled from the polarized area) into the lighter areas, using Darken as a blend mode at about 50 % opacity. Use a really large brush. In this case the tree would get in the way, but it might be possible to at least make the top of the sky and the corners the same tone. I hope you'll forgive the very rushed attempt at this version.

[francois]

Alas, I think the solution (for future) is: Never carry a circ-pol with you that fits a wide-angle lens.   

Yes, I'm done with a polarizer on my wide-angle lenses. The last time that I did screw up with this issue was with my 70-200, just after sunset . I shot a multi-image panorama and in the dark, forgot that I left a polarizer on my lens.

 

[JohnTodd]

If you use Capture One or similar, you could try setting up an LCC shot and fix it that way, perhaps?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

As a side note (or rant): why do people keep referring to polarizers as circular (or linear) polarizer??? From the standpoint of end-result, polarizer is a polarizer is a polarizer. The only time it matters is when you are buying it, never again.

As for solving it for this photo, two further options:

1. Select blue and reduce contrast
2. Select blue and use two graduated filters whose mid-lines would form a V

[shaunw]

Hands up who hasn't spoilt a shot using a polorizor on a wide lens...my hands stay forms down. Have to say as well as patchy effect from the central polorization....it's a tad soft possibly also?

[davidh202]

Slobodan was going in the right direction. It can be saved, and improved at the same time
It is going to take some patient blending, my quick version is really rough ,with a bit more time I could have done much better.
In ACR or Lightroom...
I used 2 graduated filters to darken the corners as Slobodan suggested.Don't worry if you cover too much of the ground area (trees).
Go to the adjustment brush (low density, full flow, and feathered, and with the auto masking turned on), go back over and lighten the  areas that got darker on the trees and background (that got too dark with the grad filters).
Go back over the sky if, or as necessary with the auto masking turned on, which will somewhat protect the large tree and needles as you work on the sky behind it to blend the blues using brightness and exposure sliders with combinations of density and feathering. Then go to the HSL sliders and adjust the blues and cyans some more to your liking,and while your in there you could saturate the oranges a little and make them a little redder again to your liking.

David