A method for smoke reduction in images includes accessing an RGB image of an object obscured by smoke, determining a dark channel matrix of the RGB image, estimating an atmospheric light matrix for the RGB image based on the dark channel, determining a transmission map based on to the atmospheric light matrix and the dark channel matrix, de-hazing the RGB image based on the transmission map to reduce the smoke in the RGB image, and displaying the de-hazed RGB image on a display device. The RGB image includes a plurality of pixels. The dark channel matrix includes, for each pixel of the plurality of pixels, a minimum color component intensity for a respective pixel area centered at the respective pixel. The atmospheric light matrix includes an atmospheric light component value for each of the plurality of pixels.