TIPS & TRICKS No. 4 - Removing Flare

This thread is part of the Tips & Tricks problematics. See here for more information.

Hi all,

This weeks theme is about removing flare. To get things going Ray west has kindly offered us an image to work on. The flare is hard to miss:


If you'd like to share any retouching techniques that can help rescue a photo from this sort of problem, then please demonstrate them using this image. A full size JPEG can be downloaded from here. It's been converted from the original RAW by correcting the black and white points - no other changes have been made.

Tim

Note: If you have any images that demonstrate problems for future themes, then please PM me. Your input is important.

I' d never seen or had a big, single one - when they showed up - alwith as several little ones.
I leave them, for 99% of the time, and even can' t remember when I retouched the last one.

Some other members might have better hints, but I'd try with coping segments of the image, or stamping a background copy in luminance mode, maybe dodging?

more later!

best, Klaus

Fun.
I tried to see how far I'd get without any cloning...
Made a path around the flare. Used that as a mask for an adjustment layer & adjusted it a bit. Tried to get color and luminosity as close as possible 'inside' the flare. Then I made two adjustment layers out of the one: One adjusting just the color, one the luminosity. Airbrushed the masks somewhat.
I then used 'stamp visible' to get everything on a single layer. Any cloning that should be done, should be done here...
Applied USM 20; 150; 0 for some local contrast, and masked that layer with a gradient, left to right.
Finally I added another curves layer with gradient mask, to get a bit more contrast in the upper right.

Result (sharpened for web, probabely a bit too much) (click for an 800px psd file)
.

Should get better results with the Raw file, and some cloning...
This was about 10-15 minutes work on the high res...

Very impressive Klaus - could you please share with us how you acheived that?

Tim

Hi René,

A good technique. It looks like the result will be perfect once the cloning is applied. Could you expand a little on these bits, to make things clear:

René Damkot said:

Made a path around the flare. Used that as a mask for an adjustment layer & adjusted it a bit.

Click to expand...

What type of adjustment layer? I assume a Hue/Saturation layer from the next comment.

Tried to get color and luminosity as close as possible 'inside' the flare. Then I made two adjustment layers out of the one: One adjusting just the color, one the luminosity. Airbrushed the masks somewhat.

Click to expand...

You've lost me there. You made two from one? How?

I assume that you looked at the Hue/Saturation settings that you'd settled on, then created two new adjustment layers, one that only had the Hue setting applied, and one that only had the luminosity setting applied, and the deleted the original adjustment layer. Therefor you'd have two layers that share the job of the single layer they're replacing.

However, I'm confused as to why you'd to this...


Tim

Tim Armes said:

What type of adjustment layer? I assume a Hue/Saturation layer from the next comment.

Click to expand...

Nope. A curves adjustment layer. (Blending mode: Normal)
I started of with a single layer to change both color and luminosity, since I find that the easiest way to get 'in the ballpark' quickly.
Cmd clicking somewhere in the document where you want to change color, puts a 'dot' or anchor point' on the curve on the channel you are in. So if you have a yelow spot, you open a curves adjustment layer, go to the blue curve, Cmd-click it somewhere, and hit the 'arrow up' key untill the curve adds enough blue. If for instance a lighter part gets too blue then, you Cmd click that, get a new 'anchor point' on the curve, and drag that down a bit. Same for the red and green channel, and RGB channel...

Tim Armes said:

You've lost me there. You made two from one? How?

Click to expand...

Cmd-J (copy layer). I then removed the color corrections from one and set the blending mode to 'luminosity', and removed the luminosity corrections from the other, and set that ones blending mode to 'Color'. That way a color correction doesn't change luminosity and vice versa.

Tim Armes said:

I assume that you looked at the Hue/Saturation settings that you'd settled on, then created two new adjustment layers, one that only had the Hue setting applied, and one that only had the luminosity setting applied, and the deleted the original adjustment layer. Therefor you'd have two layers that share the job of the single layer they're replacing.

However, I'm confused as to why you'd to this...

Click to expand...

As explained above: I found that when doing the final adjustments, that changing color also changed luminosity a bit, so decided to 'pull those corrections apart' into two dedicated corrections...
So, yes: Two layers do the work of one, but with better control and, allthough I don't know why, with way less impact on the histogram (less gaps).

Try downloading the .psd and have a look

Tim Armes said:

Very impressive Klaus - could you please share with us how you acheived that?

Tim

Click to expand...

Hi Tim!

Three copies stacked on layers, one inverted, eliminated all around the flare, desaturated the flare and some cloning and dodge/burn delicately . . ;-)
In the end leveling colours and lights in the whole picture by burning mids and deeps with a big soft tip.

I forgot to record the process. Took around half an hour. I have to say that i´m used to make composings and because of that corrections are always to do. I work with a pressure-sensitive Wacom tablet and pen and that helps a lot!

Better to avoid such heavy flares . . by good shades or better an adjustable bellow-shade from Lee or others.

best, Klaus

Klaus Esser said:

Three copies stacked on layers, one inverted, eliminated all around the flare, desaturated the flare and some cloning and dodge/burn delicately . . ;-)
In the end leveling colours and lights in the whole picture by burning mids and deeps with a big soft tip.

Click to expand...

Hi,

Your technique sounds interesting, but I'm a little confused about the three layers. Could you list the contents of each layer and explain why you've inverted one of them?

Thanks,

Tim