L₆₀ vs. N_H in 4 different redshift bins in the redshift range 0.2 < z < 2.5. The dashed lines show in each redshift bin, taken from Fig. 4. All objects with N_H consistent with Galactic absorption contribute to the point at N_H ≤ 10^20.5 cm^-2, irrespective of the different Galactic absorption towards the three different fields. L₆₀ is relatively flat across a large range in N_H with no clearly discernible trends, especially among well-measured points. As discussed in Sect. 4.3, covariances between L_X and N_H, driven by selection effects in the population of obscured AGNs, can affect trends in this figure, but the general results shown here should be relatively robust, since we combine measurements from fields of very different X-ray depths.