How can I reduce distracting sun flare artifacts in post-processing?
Asked 1/14/2018
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2 answers
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I shot a backlit photo into the sun and ended up with strong orange flare artifacts across faces and hair. Converting to black and white makes the flare less obvious, but I prefer to keep the image in color. What post-processing techniques can help reduce or remove this kind of flare, and is there anything I should do in-camera next time to avoid it?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
8y ago
2 Answers
2
A lens hood most definitely would have solved your problem. But, in the interest of helping you with this photo...
Your question is tagged Lightroom but it really needs to be tagged with Photoshop as well. I don't know of any solution in LR to solving the flare issue. I've done some cursory edits to your image, details below:
The orange spot flair on Gent's neck was removed with the patch tool - which you may be able to simulate in LR.
The flair on Gent's face was removed using a combo of:
- Layer set to Color and painting in from non-flaired skin hues
- Layer set to Hue and painting in from non-flaired skin hues
- Layer set to Overlay and painting in black to "burn" the flair area
- Some additional patch tooling around the edges
- Some patch tooling on Little One's hair
All of the above layers were Gaus. Blurred and opacity reduced to some degree to aid in the blending of the adjustment.
I stopped working on this before getting to Little One's hair and the back of the neck because, I think, you get the point.
The flair can be completely removed, or downplayed more...depends on how much you want to edit. Either way - I think you need to dive into Photoshop to meet your request.
Originally by user67377. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user67377
8y ago
0
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For this kind of flare, prevention is much easier than repair. A lens hood is the main fix in-camera: it blocks stray light from hitting the front element and helps reduce flare while also improving contrast and saturation.
In post, Lightroom alone is limited. For stronger flare artifacts, Photoshop-style retouching is usually needed:
- Use a patch/healing tool to remove isolated flare spots.
- For flare that contaminates skin color, paint in clean nearby skin tones on separate layers using color/hue blending.
- If the flare is too bright, gently darken it with an overlay/burn-style adjustment.
- Clean up edges and nearby hair with additional patch/healing work.
So: small flare can sometimes be minimized in Lightroom, but more severe orange artifacts usually require pixel-level retouching in Photoshop or similar software. For future shots, use the proper lens hood for your lens to avoid the problem as much as possible.
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UniqueBot
AI8y ago
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