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barcusmrandt
barcusmrandt
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Help to remove lens flare - challange

May 29, 2012 1:37 PM

Hi guys,

 

I am trying to remove a serious lens flare from a photo, with varied (and not very good) results.

 

So i am posting this as a learning challenge:) What would you say would be the best technique to remove this lens flare? If you can, please work with the photo and demonstrate the result by posting the image here.

I should probably point out that this was not shot with RAW.

 

I have attached a smaller sized version of the image here, but i have also posted the original, full size image here: http://opa.cig2.canon-europe.com/s/DRC5PY3gTSa

 

(Please let me know if the link doesn't work)IMG_3203_2.jpg

1534 Views   6 Replies   Latest reply: Noel Carboni, May 30, 2012 9:25 AM
 
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  • Noel Carboni
    20,941 posts
    Dec 23, 2006
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    1. Noel Carboni,
    May 29, 2012 2:33 PM   in reply to barcusmrandt
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    Just to give you an idea what's possible via careful Burn and Dodge, plus some HDR Toning.

     

    FolksOnBoat.jpg

     

    -Noel

     
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  • Trevor.Dennis
    1,591 posts
    May 24, 2010
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    2. Trevor.Dennis,
    May 29, 2012 3:17 PM   in reply to Noel Carboni
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    Nice job Noel.  Just a thought, but I wonder how ACR 7 would do with grandad's shadowed face?  It would be worth a try methinks.

     
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  • barcusmrandt
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    3. barcusmrandt,
    May 30, 2012 7:15 AM   in reply to Noel Carboni
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    That is great Noel!

     

    Could you describe what you did to get rid of the flare? I am quite new to photoshop as you probably understand.

     
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  • barcusmrandt
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    4. barcusmrandt,
    May 30, 2012 7:16 AM   in reply to Trevor.Dennis
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    Trevor what is ACR7 and what result are you after with the shadows?

     
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  • Trevor.Dennis
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    May 24, 2010
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    5. Trevor.Dennis,
    May 30, 2012 9:22 AM   in reply to barcusmrandt
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    ACR7 is Adobe Camera RAW version 7, and it comes with CS6, although it uses the same process as in Lightroom 4.  It has improved performance over previous versions when brightening shadow areas, like the gentleman's face in your picture.  To open a JPG in ACR, locate it with Bridge, select it and use Ctrl r (Cmd r on a Mac).   You can d the same thing on earlier versions of Photoshop, but not as successfully.

     

    Noel used the HDR features in CS6 to do the same thing, but using ACR would be a more straight forward way of going about it IMO, because Photoshop is not the best tool for HDR.

     
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  • Noel Carboni
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    Dec 23, 2006
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    6. Noel Carboni,
    May 30, 2012 9:25 AM   in reply to barcusmrandt
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    Barcusmrandt, I sized a brush for the Burn tool to just the right size, set it to shadows and "airbrush" mode, and burned each of the spots in the individual color channels (mostly red, some green, virtually no blue) until the brightness seemed about the same as the non-spot areas.

     

    Then I cleaned up the edges with some careful application of Burn and Dodge with small brushes.  It took a few minutes of elbow grease.

     

    I used the Dodge tool on the faces, to lighten them up, as you did not use fill flash when shooting.

     

    I used Image - Adjust - HDR Toning on the entire image.  It takes some trial and error with the settings for that tool to make things look good without an unnatural "overly HDR" look, but it's doable and the right settings can really make an image pop.

     

    Good luck.  Experiment and work slowly and subtly and you'll get there.  After a good bit of practice and noting what the various tools do as you use them, the steps will come naturally to you.

     

    -Noel

     
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