How to Create a Haze Effect in Photoshop (tutorial)

We looked at the process of creating a haze effect in Lightroom. Well, Photoshop can also be used to create some really beautiful haze effects, so were going to cover that as well. In this tutorial well add a purple or violet haze effect that looks great with many photos. If you dont want to follow along with the tutorial you can download a Photoshop action to automatically create the effect for you.

For the tutorial we will be using this sample photo.

And here is a sneak peak at what we will be creating.

Ok, lets get started. Were going to be adding several different adjustment layers to get the haze effect, and if youre not familiar with adding adjustment layers you can simply click on the icon shown below and then select the type of adjustment layer that you want.

Click on the icon and select to add a Levels adjustment layer. Then change the shadow output level to 40.

This will lighten the photo and give it a basic haze effect. At this stage the image looks like this.

Next, add a Brightness and Contrast adjustment layer and set the contrast to -40.

Then add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and set the saturation to -10.

Desaturating the image with a setting of -10 is a pretty subtle change, but it will help to get the overall haze effect that were after.
And the last adjustment layer that well add is a ?Solid Color layer. Set the color to #c45fc3, which is a nice violet/purple. Then set the blend mode of the layer to ?soft light and set the opacity to 40.

You can adjust the opacity as needed to work with your photo. The higher the opacity the strong the purple color will be, and a lower opacity will make the purple more subtle.
Now you have a nice purple haze effect and you are done! Heres the finished product.