Can Lightroom or Photoshop reduce halos around bright lights in night photos?
Asked 10/4/2013
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2 answers
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I’m editing a night photo with bright streetlights that have large glowing halos. Is there any effective way in Lightroom or Photoshop to reduce or tone down these halos without ruining the scene behind them? I realize some of the area around the lights may be overexposed, so detail may already be lost, but I’m wondering whether there’s a practical technique, filter, or plugin that can improve the look.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
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If you shot RAW, then you can possibly use recovery to get back some of it, but fundamentally, the issue is that detail is lost in over-exposed areas and halos tend to block out the detail behind them, so automatic replacement would be difficult. It generally requires some love and affection with a brush and some gradient tools to fix well in my experience.
Originally by user11392. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user11392
12y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
There isn’t usually an automatic fix. In night shots, halos around bright lights often come from overexposure and blooming, which means detail behind the glow may be permanently lost.
If you shot RAW, you may be able to recover some highlight detail using highlight/recovery controls, but that will only help where information still exists in the file. Once the area is clipped, software can’t truly restore the missing detail.
In practice, the best results usually come from careful local editing rather than a one-click filter: use adjustment brushes, gradients, and similar tools in Lightroom or Photoshop to reduce brightness and tame the glow selectively. That can make the halo less distracting, even if it can’t fully remove it.
So: partial improvement is possible, especially from RAW, but complete halo removal without losing or inventing detail is generally not realistic.
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