Lens Flare

[Marpel]

I am beginning to process some images, recently taken, with the rising sun in the image (Mesa Arch with sun seen through the arch). A number of the images show some lens flare that I am trying to remove. I spent some time on the first of many and found it to be a rather long laborious process as this is the first time trying this type of operation.

I combined some cloning and Grey>Tint (where I used the dropper to sample an area as close to the area of the flare as possible, then used a mask to replace some parts of the image), but as the tinted image does not match exactly, it is a hit-or-miss process at best.

As there are a number of images (with the flare in different locations), I am looking for an easier/quicker method and wonder if anyone has a suggested workflow. Am attaching one example for clarification.

**Actually, it appears the image is too large, so will have to downsize and include it in a follow-up post**.

I am also experiencing some Chromatic Aberration issues as well but will leave that for another topic thread (boy, thought I was getting a good quality lens with the Zeiss 35mm, but lens flare and CA seem significant).

Thanks,

Marv

[Marpel]

This post should have the example (if I've done everything correctly this time.

One of the problems I had in trying to remove it was the difference in texture/tone/colour, most pronounced as the flare extends beyond the edge of the "tower" and into the background landscape.

Marv

[jsachs]

The quickest way I know of to deal with this is to first make a soft mask that covers the lens flare area and then use it with the Levels and Color transformation. I set the color balance to a cyan to counteract the excess red and dropped the brightness and saturation for the masked area.

If you want you can use the same mask to add a little contrast or sharpness as well.

Levels and Color

Lens Flare.jpg (146.88 KiB) Viewed 10423 times

Result

Lens Flare 1.jpg (175.1 KiB) Viewed 10423 times

[den]

...
Another approach could be to use soft-transparent Clone and Paint brushes [Softness = 90; Transparency = 90; Radius = as needed]... ...Stamping [click-move-click-move,etc] rather than Painting [click-hold-drag-release]...

...probably more easily done for the small posted image rather than the full sized one!

lens-flare-example-1.jpg (271.24 KiB) Viewed 10415 times

...den...

[doug]

Jonathan, what did you mean by the term "soft mask"?

[jsachs]

I created a circular mask over the lens flare and then used the mask blur tool to soften the edges a lot. Since the mask was red and the lens flare was red, it looks about the same.

[doug]

Thanks, Jonathan.
By "a lot" do you mean a radius significantly greater than 30 which is the range where I usually go?

[jsachs]

The idea is to match the lens flare - if the edge is sharp, the mask should be sharp - in this case the edge was soft. I don't remember exactly the value I used.

[den]

...
One of the reasons I prefer to use Brush tools while somewhat manually intensive and requires some practice is that mask edges as indicated are limited to uniform transition gradients that may not always match all the Flare gradients as they are not uniform... ...stamping with a soft-transparent brush will allow differing change accumulations as needed to best match the non-uniform Flare image areas and its edges...

Also the amount of Mask blur will be dependent upon image size... ...a good soft mask edge transition gradient for a 600x600 pixel image will not necessarily work well for the full sized image.

...den...

[Marpel]

Thanks to Jonathan and Den for their instructive replies. I learned a lot from both.

I think the trickiest part was getting the right colour (for the Colour Balance in Jonathan's process and the Paint Brush Tool in Den's process), particularly where the flare bleeds across the edge of the tower into the background, which is a bit different colour.

Thanks again,

Marv