Why do white flowers get a glowing halo in my photos?
Asked 4/9/2016
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2 answers
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When I photograph white dogwood blossoms, the petals often end up with a bright halo or “glow” around the edges, even though the flowers themselves look sharp. I’ve already checked that the lens is clean, so I don’t think it’s caused by smudges. What typically causes this effect, and how can I reduce it while keeping good detail in the petals?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
7
You applied surplus of sharpening. Sharpening means for a computer to find a lightness transition and make the dark part of it darker and the lighter part lighter. If you apply disastrous amount of sharpening (as you clearly did) you are guaranteed to get those artifacts - the ligher part will become clipped white and the darker part will become clipped black.
You will get similar artifacts if you use aggressive tonemapping (which is sharpening with very big radius) but at a larger scale.
Here I reproduced the defect which original image has, it is visible on tilted parallel lines.

Solution:
- slide your sharpening back to the point where it does not produce artifacts
- if the sharpness does not satisfy you, increase tonal contrast instead
- if it is still not sharp enough, increase the radius of sharpening - this will let you sharpen more and make the black glow weaker
P.S. Regarding lack of detail in petals. You may try to strengthen them using "highlight recovery" setting in your RAW converter or with using tonal curves, here is an example. However, it seems to me that details are lacking not because of camera or objective but because the flower is glossy, and the sun reduces the visibility of details.
Originally by user49477. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user49477
10y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
This kind of “glow” is usually not from a dirty lens. Based on the examples described, it’s more likely caused by image processing artifacts:
- Too much sharpening can create halos along high-contrast edges, especially around bright white petals. Sharpening boosts edge contrast, and if pushed too far it can clip highlights and shadows into obvious bright/dark outlines.
- Aggressive tonemapping or local contrast adjustments can produce a similar effect on a larger scale.
- JPEG compression can also add edge artifacts, especially if the file is saved at low quality.
To reduce it:
- Lower your sharpening amount until the halos disappear.
- Avoid heavy clarity/local-contrast/tonemapping adjustments.
- Use higher image quality settings, or better yet shoot RAW and process more gently.
- If you want more apparent crispness, try increasing overall tonal contrast a bit rather than strong edge sharpening.
So the fix is mainly gentler processing and higher-quality capture, not lens cleaning.
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