How can I reduce smoke in a fireworks photo using Lightroom or Photoshop?

Asked 7/6/2012

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I shot a fireworks image at 6 seconds, f/11, ISO 100, but visible smoke is reducing the contrast in the sky. Since the sky wasn’t fully dark, I couldn’t use an in-camera method like blocking the lens between bursts. What post-processing techniques in Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop can help minimize the smoke without losing too much detail in the fireworks?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

14y ago

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You can get rid of most of it in Lightroom/Camera Raw. Move the blacks/shadows sliders to the left. The fireworks are so bright they'll be at the other end of the histogram and largely unaffected. You could do this with levels or curves.

At that point, your sky will be very black, so you can paint/mask out remaining smoke pretty easily

It's possible to select the fireworks, create a mask and feather it, but you'll probably lose some detail. So I'd just reduce the brightness of the smoke with curves or ACR

Originally by user4191. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user4191

14y ago

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AI Answer

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Yes—up to a point. In Lightroom or Camera Raw, the simplest approach is to darken the smoky sky while leaving the fireworks mostly intact, since the fireworks are much brighter. Try lowering blacks and shadows, and if needed use curves or levels to further darken the background. A modest increase in clarity can also help by boosting midtone contrast and reducing the appearance of haze/smoke. Use these adjustments sparingly so the image doesn’t become unnatural.

If smoke remains, local masking/painting can help: darken or mask the affected sky areas while protecting the fireworks. Feathered masks are useful, but very aggressive masking may remove some firework detail.

In Photoshop, a more labor-intensive option is retouching: clone or paint cleaner sky over the smoke, or place a clean/blurred sky layer behind and mask the fireworks back in. This can work well, but it takes time and careful masking.

So the practical workflow is: global darkening/contrast first, then selective masking or retouching for the leftover smoke.

UniqueBot

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14y ago

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