Resolve FX ColorStudioDaVinci Resolve 21

Dehaze

A depth-aware Resolve FX for reducing smog, airlight and atmospheric haze by combining selective colour/contrast correction with an automatically estimated depth matte.

Depth matte

automatic weighting

Haze Color

sampled airlight

5 controls

+ Global Blend

Controls Production workflow

What Dehaze actually does

It is not a magic fog remover — it is depth-weighted colour and contrast recovery

Resolve estimates a depth mask from the image, applies stronger correction to regions it believes are farther away and more affected by haze, and protects areas it interprets as closer. Because the depth estimate is inferred rather than measured, the matte must be inspected and sometimes corrected.

1. Estimate depth

The effect builds a simulated near/far mask from the current frame.

2. Define the haze

Haze Color tells the correction which airlight colour should be reduced.

3. Restore separation

Strength applies a linked colour/contrast change, weighted by the depth estimate.

Inspector controls

Five controls define the haze model, depth weighting and final mix

The most important distinction is that Shadow and Highlight belong to the simulated depth mask, not to ordinary tonal correction. Treat Haze Color, depth shaping and Strength as one connected model.

Correction intensity

Dehaze Strength

Dehaze Strength changes colour and contrast together rather than acting as a simple Contrast control. Raising it pushes the image away from the selected Haze Color, increases scene separation — especially through the shadows — and selectively restores saturation. Lowering it moves in the opposite direction, adding a more haze-like/airlight character while reducing contrast and saturation.

It is a coupled colour + contrast correction

Bad settings show most clearly in shadows and distant planes

Do not use Strength to compensate for a wrong exposure

Haze / airlight colour

Haze Color

Haze Color defines the colour of smog, atmospheric haze or scattered airlight that Dehaze should reduce. The safest approach is to sample a genuinely hazy distant area without a bright subject, specular highlight or saturated local colour. A bad sample changes the direction of the entire colour compensation and can easily create cyan, magenta or overly warm neutrals.

Sample the haze itself, not the subject

A visually grey haze does not always need a pure-white sample

Check RGB Parade after using the eyedropper

View the internal depth matte

Display Depth

Dehaze automatically builds a simulated depth matte, estimating which areas are farther away and therefore more affected by haze, and which areas are closer and should receive less correction. Display Depth reveals that internal map. It is a diagnostic view for tuning Shadow and Highlight, not a creative display mode.

This is estimated depth, not true camera Z-depth

Matte errors are common in sky, water and backlight

Tune the range with Display Depth enabled

Shape the simulated depth mask

Shadow / Highlight

These are not ordinary tonal Shadows/Highlights controls. They reshape the extremes of the estimated depth matte: Shadow raises or lowers its darkest areas, which Dehaze treats as the farthest parts of the scene; Highlight changes the lightest areas, treated as the closest. The goal is believable depth-dependent correction, not a visually pretty matte.

Shadow works on the dark side of the depth mask

Highlight works on the light side of the depth mask

Turn Display Depth off and re-check the image after tuning

Final effect mix

Global Blend

Blend mixes the final Dehaze result with the node's original state. 1.000 shows the full computed effect; lower values reduce the already tuned combination of depth matte, Haze Color and Strength. It is useful as a final naturalness control, but it cannot replace a correct depth matte or hide a bad Haze Color sample.

Tune depth and Strength first, Blend last

Compare bypass across the moving clip

A moderate Strength is often cleaner than rescuing an extreme setting with low Blend

Dehaze vs nearby tools

Do not replace every flat image with Dehaze

Dehaze

Atmospheric veil reduction with an estimated depth matte and haze-colour model.

Contrast Pop

Local-contrast shaping by detail size and tonal thresholds, without a depth model.

Primaries / Curves

Direct tonal and colour shaping when the problem is exposure, gamma or contrast rather than atmosphere.

Qualifier / Window

Explicit spatial/colour isolation when automatic depth weighting chooses the wrong regions.

Production workflow

A six-step Dehaze workflow that avoids the typical overprocessed look

Work from the haze model outward: diagnose the atmospheric problem, sample the veil, inspect the depth matte, shape it, then set Strength and only finally trim Blend.

Decide whether the problem is really atmospheric haze

Dehaze is designed for smog, airlight and atmospheric veiling. If the shot is merely flat because of log gamma, underexposure, flare or a lifted black level, fix that technical problem first rather than forcing Dehaze to solve it.

Sample a representative Haze Color

Use the eyedropper on a distant hazy region that represents the airlight you want to suppress. Avoid clouds, bright objects, specular reflections and local coloured surfaces because the sampled colour steers the correction itself.

Turn on Display Depth before shaping the range

Inspect the estimated depth matte rather than guessing what the algorithm thinks is near or far. Look for obvious inversions or segmentation errors around sky, water, silhouettes and high-contrast edges.

Tune Shadow and Highlight for believable depth weighting

Use Shadow for the darkest/farthest side of the depth mask and Highlight for the lightest/closest side. The objective is not maximum separation; it is a matte that applies more correction where haze actually dominates and protects nearby subjects.

Raise Strength while watching colour, contrast and texture together

Increase Strength until depth separation improves, then stop before distant blacks become crushed, foliage turns unnaturally saturated, neutral haze picks up a complementary cast, or noise becomes much more visible.

Validate the full clip and use Blend only as finishing

Scrub changing weather, camera moves and reframing. If the depth estimate changes unpleasantly, reduce the underlying correction first. Use Global Blend as a final perceptual trim, not as a bandage for an unstable matte.

Common failures

Most bad Dehaze results come from the depth model or an over-strong correction

Distant areas become crunchy and noisy

Strength is too high, so shadow contrast and saturation reveal noise and compression that the haze had been hiding. Reduce Strength and denoise upstream when the signal genuinely needs it.

Sky or reflections receive the wrong correction

The simulated depth matte has misread low-detail or reflective regions. Use Display Depth, reshape Shadow/Highlight, and if the failure remains obvious restrict the FX with a Window/Qualifier.

The image picks up a cyan/magenta/warm cast

Haze Color was sampled from a local object or Strength is pushing too far toward the complementary correction. Re-sample genuine airlight and verify RGB Parade before adding a downstream white-balance compensation.

Foreground skin or product colour looks unnaturally processed

The depth estimate is not protecting the near subject enough, or the effect is simply too strong globally. Correct the matte, use a spatial matte when needed and keep atmospheric correction focused on the distant planes.

Atmospheric correction through estimated depth

Dehaze: the signal-level model

The useful mental model for Dehaze is not a generic contrast filter but a two-part system. Resolve first estimates a simulated depth matte — which areas are probably near or far. It then weights a coupled colour-and-contrast correction, directed away from the selected Haze Color, more strongly over estimated distant regions and less over near ones.

Blackmagic's Reference Manual describes Dehaze as a Resolve FX for quickly and selectively reducing smog, airlight and haze. The effect automatically generates a simulated depth matte so distant regions receive more correction and close regions less. The manual explicitly notes that this depth mask will not be perfect, which is why Shadow and Highlight controls exist to refine it.

Simulated depth is an estimate derived from the RGB image, not physical Z-depth and not guaranteed object segmentation. Sky, water, reflections, backlight, low-contrast surfaces and large uniform regions can be misinterpreted. Display Depth is therefore an essential diagnostic view on difficult shots.

Use it when

atmospheric perspective, light smog and veiling haze that reduce separation in distant planes
landscapes, cityscapes and telephoto shots where distant objects visibly lose contrast and saturation because of airlight
fast depth-weighted clean-up before a creative look when global contrast would be too blunt

Choose another tool when

the image is flat only because of log gamma, wrong CST/RCM or an incorrect black level — fix signal state first
detail is physically lost to clipping, heavy compression or the noise floor — Dehaze cannot recreate missing information
you need one specific object and the automatic depth matte cannot isolate it — use a Window/Qualifier/Tracker

Control → signal meaning → verification

Layer	What it means	How to verify
Dehaze Strength	Changes contrast and colour together. Raising Strength increases contrast, especially in shadows, shifts colour toward the complement of the selected Haze Color and selectively increases saturation; lowering it moves in the opposite direction.	Waveform: check for crushed distant shadows; RGB Parade/Vectorscope: check for channel casts or oversaturation; Viewer: preserve believable aerial perspective.
Haze Color	The colour of smog/airlight/haze the effect is trying to minimise. The eyedropper sets the direction of the colour compensation itself.	Sample the real distant atmospheric veil without a specular highlight, saturated object or cloud edge; verify neutrals in RGB Parade after sampling.
Display Depth	Displays the internal simulated depth matte used to weight the correction by estimated scene depth.	Look for near/far inversions, dirty silhouette edges, misread sky/water and matte changes during motion.
Shadow	Raises or lowers the darkest parts of the simulated depth mask — the regions the model treats as farthest away.	With Display Depth on, check whether dark foreground objects are being treated as 'far'; after disabling Depth, verify foreground shadows are not overprocessed.
Highlight	Raises or lowers the lightest parts of the simulated depth mask — the regions the model treats as closest.	Check sky highlights, mist around the sun and bright foreground objects: brightness does not necessarily mean physical proximity.
Global Blend	Final mix between the FX result and the node's original state after Haze Color, depth matte and Strength have been evaluated.	Tune the model first at Blend 1.000; only then reduce Blend when a more natural perceptual mix is needed.

Production workflow

01Normalise signal state and correct gross exposure/white-balance errors before Dehaze so the FX is not compensating for a broken pipeline.
02Confirm that the loss of distant contrast/saturation is actually atmospheric haze rather than flare, log gamma or a low-resolution source.
03Sample Haze Color from a representative distant atmospheric veil.
04Enable Display Depth, then use Shadow/Highlight to obtain believable near/far weighting without obvious inversions.
05Disable Display Depth and raise Strength gradually while checking shadow texture, neutrals, saturation and noise.
06Review the full clip; only after the depth matte behaves consistently decide whether final Global Blend or additional spatial isolation is needed.

Diagnostics: symptom → cause → fix

Distant detail looks clearer but noise/compression becomes much stronger

Likely cause: Strength is excessively increasing shadow contrast and selective saturation, revealing hidden source artefacts.

Fix: Reduce Strength; apply temporal/spatial NR upstream if genuinely needed. Do not try to restore information that is not present in the signal.

A dark foreground object receives more Dehaze than a bright distant background

Likely cause: The simulated depth matte has confused tonality with geometric depth in this scene.

Fix: Inspect Display Depth and reshape Shadow/Highlight; if the model remains wrong, restrict Dehaze with a Window/Qualifier/Tracker.

Neutrals shift cyan/magenta/amber after Dehaze

Likely cause: Haze Color was sampled from a locally coloured object or Strength is pushing the complementary rebalance too far.

Fix: Re-sample a genuine airlight area, return Strength to a moderate value and check RGB Parade before adding more correction.

The apparent Dehaze amount pumps during a pan or camera move

Likely cause: The automatic depth estimate changes as composition and frame content change.

Fix: Reduce Strength, inspect depth behaviour across the whole shot, and use spatial isolation or a more controlled manual correction for critical scenes.

Node placement

In practice Dehaze usually makes most sense after input normalisation and basic exposure/white-balance correction, but before heavy creative looks, halation/grain and final texture. That gives the depth estimate a stable signal and keeps downstream looks from hiding matte errors. If the effect is constrained by a Window/Qualifier, keep it on a dedicated labelled node.

Scopes / validation

Waveform reveals crushed shadows and excessive contrast. RGB Parade helps identify complementary colour casts after Haze Color, while Vectorscope shows excessive saturation. Scopes cannot tell whether the depth estimate is geometrically correct, so Display Depth and the Viewer remain essential alongside measurements.

Managed-pipeline warning

Dehaze is a creative/repair Resolve FX, not a colour-management transform. In RCM/ACES first ensure input mapping and the working-space state are correct. Do not use Dehaze to repair a double transform, wrong gamma tag or incorrect output mapping. The effect should receive a stable grading signal rather than compensate for a technical pipeline error.

Do not confuse the roles

Dehaze versus the neighbouring Color FX

Color Space Transform

explicit conversion between colour-space/gamma descriptions, including tone/gamut mapping

Dehaze

It is not a magic fog remover — it is depth-weighted colour and contrast recovery

1. Estimate depth

2. Define the haze

3. Restore separation

Five controls define the haze model, depth weighting and final mix

Dehaze Strength

Haze Color

Display Depth

Shadow / Highlight

Global Blend

Do not replace every flat image with Dehaze

Dehaze

Contrast Pop

Primaries / Curves

Qualifier / Window

A six-step Dehaze workflow that avoids the typical overprocessed look

Decide whether the problem is really atmospheric haze

Sample a representative Haze Color

Turn on Display Depth before shaping the range

Tune Shadow and Highlight for believable depth weighting

Raise Strength while watching colour, contrast and texture together

Validate the full clip and use Blend only as finishing

Most bad Dehaze results come from the depth model or an over-strong correction

Distant areas become crunchy and noisy

Sky or reflections receive the wrong correction

The image picks up a cyan/magenta/warm cast

Foreground skin or product colour looks unnaturally processed

Dehaze: the signal-level model

Use it when

Choose another tool when

Control → signal meaning → verification

Production workflow

Diagnostics: symptom → cause → fix

Node placement

Scopes / validation

Managed-pipeline warning

Dehaze versus the neighbouring Color FX

Primary references used for this technical layer

Practical questions about Dehaze in Resolve

Where Dehaze fits into a practical Color workflow

DCTL

Scopes

Qualifier / Windows

False Color