Removing flare

[Carl Becker]

A photo that I shot this morning led me to realize that I don't know of a specific way to do this effectively. I shot this train using continuous shooting (my normal routine), and this version turned out...

PhotoID: 376405 Photograph © Carl Becker

...but all the ones after it showed flare, like the one I'm attaching (don't judge the crop, etc, I just cut it to upload it here). If the flare hadn't shown up, I perhaps would have used a different version here, but was obviously unable to. This was taken with the Canon 55-250, BTW, which is obviously not the best handler of flare. I tried numerous techniques to try to remove it, including the spot healer in DPP, which just left me with ugly splotches in the trees, or plow, depending on the shot. Does anyone else have specific ideas here?

~Carl Becker

[JRMDC]

Geesh, this one seems easy, am I missing something? Removing a green flare from a black plow? Attached is my take.

In general, for flare, I find that the clone stamp tool works much better than the spot healing brush. Also, in the past I once tried to remove colors, on a night shot, that didn't work out well at all.

Trees would be a bigger problem, you don't have a solid area. But if you zoom in a lot and spend a lot of time, sometimes you can get a decent result.

J

[Carl Becker]

Originally Posted by JRMDC

Geesh, this one seems easy, am I missing something? Removing a green flare from a black plow? Attached is my take.

J,

Alright, maybe I was being a little too nitpicky. Admittedly I was looking at full screen; so the imperfections were more obvious. But that doesn't look bad at all; thanks for the example.

I expected as much that getting rid of it from trees would be much harder. I guess since I don't shoot backlit very often, however, it will likely not be a common issue.

~Carl Becker

[trainboysd40]

Flare is easiest dealt with by not shooting trains with filters attached, and second easiest by praying that it shows up in an area that's easy to clone. You got lucky.

[Carl Becker]

I never use filters. I don't think these kit lenses were designed with them exactly in mind.