flare from the sun can ruin your landscape photos it can easily happen at any time and often without
you realizing so in this video i'll share how to remove unwanted lens flare from this photo using
basic photoshop tools looking at the starting image you can see there's flare in several areas
often lens flare happens when shooting towards the sun if there's dirt on the lens surface or filters
but even if you have spotless lenses light can still reflect off surfaces of the filters and lens
elements which is what's happened here you also might not realize the extent of the problem until
you try opening the shadows in the image that's why it's a good idea to check your image carefully
by lightening it with a levels adjustment layer you can do this in several ways but an easy
way is to click this icon at the bottom of the layers window when you see the new layer added
change its blend mode to screen this lightens the image which can reveal lens flare in darker areas
it's better to find and fix this problem at the start of editing rather than after you've done
a lot of work now that i've lightened this image you can see there's a problem in the bottom right
corner you might also find it easier to spot problems by moving the level's center slider
left and right when you find an area with flare make a note so you don't forget to fix it an easy
way to do this is to add a new empty layer you can do this by selecting layer then new layer in
the photoshop menu alternatively you can click the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers window
then using the brush tool outline any areas to repair in red painting on the layer now we've
identified areas with lens flare we should turn off the helper layers before making the repair
i find it's best to group them into a folder so you can turn the folder off and on as you
work to remove the lens flare we'll use three common tools from the photoshop tools palette
these are the clone stamp healing brush and patch tools each has features that make it well
suited to certain types of repair i'll explain the differences between the tools as i work on
removing the lens flare when you're using these tools it's a good idea to work on separate layers
because the tools are destructive now there are two tips i want to share with you to make
it easier to produce a better repair the first is to break the repair down into smaller areas
the other is to select the right tool for each area of the repair with this image it's probably
best to make the repair in four sections and each section will be on a separate layer let's start
by adding a new layer using the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers window we'll rename
the layer to be upper flare because we'll use it to repair the lens flare in the top part of
the image whilst we could use any of the three repair tools i mentioned a larger area of flare
like this is probably best tackled with the patch tool the patch tool is good for replacing large
sections with other areas of the image and then blending the repair with those surrounding areas
you'll find the patch tool in the photoshop tools palette grouped with a few other repair tools
if the icon isn't visible right click on the small grey triangle to the bottom right of the icon this
displays all the tools in that group it's possible the icon for any of these tools could be shown in
the tools palette when using the patch tool it sometimes makes a perfect repair but other times
you might need to refine it using other tools before using the patch tool you also need to check
the controls in the toolbar you want to see that it's set to sample all visible layers of the image
what we don't want is to only sample the current layer because that's empty so it won't do anything
we also need to use the content-aware fill which tries to match the repair to the surrounding areas
the structure slider is important to control how closely the tool tries to retain structure in
the repair with the lens flare in the cloud we can reduce this to a low value like too
because there isn't any structure there's also a setting for blending the colours in the repair we
want to use the maximum value with this because it helps to blend the colours of the repair with
the surrounding area if we don't control these settings it's easy to produce a visible edge in
the repair now i can select the repair layer in the layers window and draw around the flare using
the patch tool notice that i'm leaving a little space around the lens flare as i draw which helps
the patch tool blend the repair after drawing a selection position the mouse pointer over the area
and then click and drag this moves the selection to a new area of the image which will be used for
the repair what we need to find is an area of the image that seems to match the area we want to fix
then when i release the mouse button photoshop applies the patch to remove the lens flare it's
a good idea to check the repair by clearing the selection and turning the layer off and on then if
you find a minor problem rather than trying to use the patch tool again you're better fixing it with
the clone stamp or healing brush tool let's now tackle the lower part of the lens flare as before
add a new layer to use for the repair and call this lower flare 1. we'll use this to remove the
top half of the lens flare first because it looks like it will be easier than the area lower down
if we zoom into the area you'll see that it has two parts to the flare first there are
the coloured balls or spots which we need to remove but then there's a lighter strip
running down the frame i'm not too concerned with the lighter strip as i'll explain later if
we want to we can easily remove it by dodging to darknet first though we need to remove the
coloured spots of flare we can do this using either the clone tool or the healing brush
small repairs like this tend to be better with the healing brush because it attempts to blend
the repair with the surrounding pixels click on the healing brush from the photoshop tools palette
notice that i'm using the healing brush for the repair rather than the spot healing brush
that's because it gives much better control over where the repair is sampled from the important
settings to check in the toolbar before making the repair are that it's sampling from all visible
layers also the brush hardness is set to around 80 percent to give a slightly soft edge to the repair
you can then pick the area to sample further repair by holding down the option key and clicking
on it with your mouse if you're using a windows pc hold down the alt key once clicking then when you
move the mouse pointer over the repair area you'll see the samples superimposed inside the brush tip
position the brush over the lens flare you want to remove size the brush so that it's
slightly larger than the repair you can do this by using the square bracket keys on your keyboard
use the left key to reduce the brush size and the right key to increase it the key to making good
repair is to sample a point that matches the repair area when you're happy with the preview
click to make the repair after that you can move to the next area and repeat the process it often
helps to paint around the area you want to fix rather than just using a single click you'll
see that as you move the brush photoshop refines the repair blending it with the surrounding area
when it comes to the lens flare on the horizon we need to take a lot of care in picking the sample
for this fix i'll move the center of the brush so that it's exactly on the horizon
before taking the sample this makes it easier to match the horizon in the repair after cleaning
up all the areas i can move on to tackling the lower part of the lens flare as before we'll add
a new layer to make the new repair so we don't risk messing up our other repairs this part of
the lens flare is going to be trickier to fix because of the detail and colour in that area
the patch tool won't make a good job of this and whilst the healing brush may work you'll probably
notice the repair what we want to do is replace the damaged area with other areas of the image
this type of repair is a good candidate for the clone tool it means we can make an exact copy from
multiple areas of the image to build up a repair the key settings for this are to sample from all
visible layers i'll also set the brush hardness to around 60 to help blend and repair with the
surrounding area with the clone stamp brush the sample point is critical because photoshop
doesn't try to blend colors or textures the key is to sample areas that look like they will blend
with the existing image around the repair as you work build up the repair gradually don't be afraid
of sampling different areas providing the repair looks natural it's a good idea to fix small areas
at a time repairing a large area with a single sample is difficult and usually easy to spot
finally group the repairs into a folder to turn them off and on to check the overall effect
let's turn on the original helper layers to check if we've missed anything
when i do this you'll see the repairs i made show up but then when i hide the layers they disappear
i can also see that we still need to repair the corner of the frame this is a large area that's
well suited to the patch tool this time we'll use a higher structure setting of around five
but we'll leave the colour at 10. before attempting the repair remember to turn off
the helper layers or you'll be able to see the repair later when you turn them off as before add
a new layer to use for the repair then draw around the area and drag to find a suitable replacement
with the repair done i'll move the layer into the group with the other repairs
here's the original image and here's the repair
the only trace of the lens flare is now the lighter area in the lower half of the frame we
could fix this by dodging to darken the area but i'm not going to that's because i want to add lens
flare to this image in a follow-up video to create a dramatic image effect now if making a repair
like this seems complex there's a trick you can use to make it easier as i explained in this video
this is a very simple thing to do but you need to remember to do it when you're taking the photo