Sun glare... how would you remove this?

[Jan K.]

Have a bunch of shots from this little spot, but since I didn't use the tripod, I wasn't paying attention to the sun glare reflections in the lens...

Tried some cloning and spot healing, but neither with useful success.

How would you attack this problem?

I use Elements 10 and Capture NX2 as editing software.

Thanks in advance.

 

[alanmossdan]

I would suggest that you might need to practise your healing/cloning techniques (not trying to be critical, just pointing out that it should be possible). But in the mean time you could just take a big clone brush and sample from a non-glare area to the left, and replace everything in one go - just be sure to look out for obvious replicates of the same features that the average person might be able to spot.

 

[Ozei]

You can get rid of most/all of the flare (bottom right of frame) using two Color Control Points in NX2 - one on the small/brighter flare and another on the large/more diffused flare to its right. Adjust radius of both CCPs and drop saturation.

 

[4ndy]

I would use frequency separation technique, where you separate into 2 layers 1 is the detail and the other the colour, then working just on the colour layer brush over the glare with the clone brush (set to that layer only). Youtube frequency separation, there is plenty of tutorials.

 

[Jan K.]

Thanks a lot for your advices, gents! Most appreciated!

I would suggest that you might need to practise your healing/cloning techniques (not trying to be critical, just pointing out that it should be possible)...

Don't worry about being "critical" - I'm new to this photo editing stuff, so was looking for best attack method for this kind of problem.

You can get rid of most/all of the flare (bottom right of frame) using two Color Control Points in NX2 - one on the small/brighter flare and another on the large/more diffused flare to its right. Adjust radius of both CCPs and drop saturation.

After posting it suddenly struck me to simply use a brush to select area for yellow tint, apply "Color correction" and tone down yellow/brightness.
Then same procedure for area with red, and finally blue area... seems to get me pretty close to an acceptable look.
Will do some tests with CCPs too, as it would be cool to do all editing in NX2.

I would use frequency separation technique...

That's an entirely new concept for me. Thanks, will do some research on this topic!

 

[Ozei]

After posting it suddenly struck me to simply use a brush to select area for yellow tint, apply "Color correction" and tone down yellow/brightness.
Then same procedure for area with red, and finally blue area... seems to get me pretty close to an acceptable look.
Will do some tests with CCPs too, as it would be cool to do all editing in NX2.

You can also use CCPs to correct the tint - to try it, place a CCP on the yellow flare, click on the 'color picker' rectangle (in NX2's 'adjust' section), then use the eyedropper in the (color picker) dialog box.