Removing Sun Glare in PhotoShop

judicious use ofthe "Heal" tool. In the tools menu, click once on the icon of a bandaid. before you start working on the image, make a duplicate ofthe image, save the duplicate with a slightly different name and work and do your work on that image. it also helps to make a duplicate layer and do your retouching in that layer. if you are not happy in a general way with the way things look, delete that layer and start afresh. When finished flatten the layers.

I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about, but this was done in about 2 minutes with the clone tool. The problem with the healing brush is it works from a sample and interpolates what should be there from what is there originally and what you are adding to it, or at least that is what it seems like to me.

Anyway, you can do this better with practice. I did this: Selected only the area I wanted changed, in this case the line across the glasses (selection tool:polygonal lasso or {key L}), added a 2 pixel feather (selection/feather or {control+alt+D}), clone tool (set opacity at 32/flow 100 {key S}). Hold ALT and click from where you want to copy from and start fixing!

Hope this helps.

I love how people seem to think that because it is digital, no time or skill needs to be used!

It is true for small areas such as the left lens, the clone and healing brush works well.

However, with the right lens, these tools begin to become more trouble than rebuilding the image's channels by hand.

To do this, I first stepped through the three channels in RGB to find the one with the most detail in the right lens's flair. Being that it is cyan-green, red had the most detail. I then copied and pasted the red channel into a new document. I then cleaned up the left lens with the healing brush, it had no detail anyway.

I thn built an adjustment layer, I used levels but I would suggest using curves. I then turned on the layer mask channel in the channels menu and masked out the flair, then inverted the mask. I turned off the layer mask.

I then made an adjustment to make the flair go away. When satisfied, I flattened the layers.

I went back to the original, copied the other two layers into the new document. With a feather of I think 12 (or 24, i do not remember) I selected the affected area roughly back on the original Red channel which has now been fixed.

I coped and pasted the fixed area onto their own layers above each of the other channels and then built and grouped (option/alt betwene layers on the layers pallette) a curves layer to the corrected area. I then turned off (hid) all layers above the one I was rebuilding. I used curves to match the tonality of the correction to the original layer. You can noticed where I got a little lazy, there is a very slight magenta cast over the bridge of her nose. This can be removed afterwards using an adjustment layer and masking out that portion.

When i was done, i linked the adjustment layer, the corrected portion and the original channel and merged linked for all three layers. I then went back to the original document and "Pasted into" each channel the corresponding rebuilt channel.

It seems like a lot of work, and granted i did not correct all the flair and I was a little sloppy on the green channel, but it only took me about five minutes. With a little practice, this won't take you any more than 10 to do it right.

What I love is how some people come along and say just because it's digital blah blah blah. Make more of something that needs to be done, if you like Greg, but learn the simple processes before you get into things like layer masks and color channels. Once you learn to use the tools referred to above as no skills, you can apply them above, below, and beyond.

I have no problems spending time to improve my photos, I knew when I started in Digital Photography about 4 years ago that I would need to learn these skills someday. I just really couldn't afford Photoshop until recently and Paint Shop Pro, although powerful, has less step by step tutorials, at least that I have found.

I want to thank every one that took the time to illustrate the techniques.

My real problem is I really don't consider myself a skilled artist who can draw, one of the reasons I feel that I am drawn toward photography. Also Photoshop is a large and complex program and was to be honest somewhat daunting. I just needed a jumping off point, and several people here have given me a place to start. After posting I found the Clone tool and played with that, I was somewhat successful in the few minutes that I had at lunch to work on the left lens but less than successful with the right. I will try and absorb and apply the techniques touched upon and add the retouched photo soon.

Thanks one and all.

Greg

Just bought this book and it's great for its approach of walking you through the actual steps of retouching using photoshop. It's called Photoshop for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby. You can preview pages on the Amazon website to check it out.