Getting rid of camera flash/reflection/glare using PS/Gimp? (not redeye)

I have a few pretty good pictures i took with one big problem, they have flash reflections (glare?), that is the washed out white spot due to taking a picture of a reflective surface with a flash (it was a take-it-before-it-passes kinda thing and i forgot about the flash).

Is there a way to get rid of or reduce the flash whiteness from the picture using Photoshop (CS) or Gimp?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Gaiko

wrote:

I have a few pretty good pictures i took with one big problem, they have flash reflections (glare?), that is the washed out white spot due to taking a picture of a reflective surface with a flash (it was a take-it-before-it-passes kinda thing and i forgot about the flash).
Is there a way to get rid of or reduce the flash whiteness from the picture using Photoshop (CS) or Gimp?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Gaiko

Do you have an example or 2 you could share with us, Gaiko. Depending on what the glare is appearing on would determine the method of reducing and/or removing it. Glare on a face, for example, could be removed by careful cloning from good areas of skin using a high transparency for the clone tool. Or filling the area with a high transparency and then adding a little "noise". The list goes on and on, depending on the subject which method you might use.
If you can supply an image, I am happy to correct it to the best of my ability and then tell you step by step how I went about it.

Brian.

Brian wrote:

wrote:

I have a few pretty good pictures i took with one big problem, they have flash reflections (glare?), that is the washed out white spot due to taking a picture of a reflective surface with a flash (it was a take-it-before-it-passes kinda thing and i forgot about the flash).
Is there a way to get rid of or reduce the flash whiteness from the picture using Photoshop (CS) or Gimp?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Gaiko

If it's a reflection off a metallic/plastic surface, one thing you can do is the following:

1. Select by colour the glare area.
2. Feather selection.
3. Use Curves to reduce the intensity of the spots.

Joal.

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:23:31 GMT, Joal Heagney
wrote:

Brian wrote:

wrote:

I have a few pretty good pictures i took with one big problem, they have flash reflections (glare?), that is the washed out white spot due to taking a picture of a reflective surface with a flash (it was a take-it-before-it-passes kinda thing and i forgot about the flash).
Is there a way to get rid of or reduce the flash whiteness from the picture using Photoshop (CS) or Gimp?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Gaiko

If it's a reflection off a metallic/plastic surface, one thing you can do is the following:

1. Select by colour the glare area.
2. Feather selection.
3. Use Curves to reduce the intensity of the spots.

Joal.

If the spots are truly "washed out" meaning no info exept the purest white... that will not help.

Joal Heagney wrote:

Brian wrote:

wrote:

I have a few pretty good pictures i took with one big problem, they have flash reflections (glare?), that is the washed out white spot due to taking a picture of a reflective surface with a flash (it was a take-it-before-it-passes kinda thing and i forgot about the flash).
Is there a way to get rid of or reduce the flash whiteness from the picture using Photoshop (CS) or Gimp?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Gaiko

If it's a reflection off a metallic/plastic surface, one thing you can do is the following:

1. Select by colour the glare area.
2. Feather selection.
3. Use Curves to reduce the intensity of the spots.

Joal.

I use the Patch Tool. Well, most of the time.

Clyde

ZONED! wrote:

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:23:31 GMT, Joal Heagney
wrote:

Brian wrote:

wrote:

I have a few pretty good pictures i took with one big problem, they have flash reflections (glare?), that is the washed out white spot due to taking a picture of a reflective surface with a flash (it was a take-it-before-it-passes kinda thing and i forgot about the flash).
Is there a way to get rid of or reduce the flash whiteness from the picture using Photoshop (CS) or Gimp?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Gaiko

If it's a reflection off a metallic/plastic surface, one thing you can do is the following:

1. Select by colour the glare area.
2. Feather selection.
3. Use Curves to reduce the intensity of the spots.

Joal.

If the spots are truly "washed out" meaning no info exept the purest white... that will not help.

Not necessarily. If the spots are small enough, by using curves they tend to stand out less in the overall image. I used it once on a beach scene (Damn me if I didn't wipe the images off my hard-drive though.) to deemphasis the litter on the sand. Also, that's where the feather selection comes in - by blurring into the rest of the image, you regain pseudo-information. *grins*

Joal

Joal Heagney wrote:

If it's a reflection off a metallic/plastic surface, one thing you can do is the following:

1. Select by colour the glare area.
2. Feather selection.
3. Use Curves to reduce the intensity of the spots.

Joal.

If the spots are truly "washed out" meaning no info exept the purest white... that will not help.

Not necessarily. If the spots are small enough, by using curves they tend to stand out less in the overall image. I used it once on a beach scene (Damn me if I didn't wipe the images off my hard-drive though.) to deemphasis the litter on the sand. Also, that's where the feather selection comes in - by blurring into the rest of the image, you regain pseudo-information. *grins*

You forget to mention one thing. When used in the normal way, Curves does not lower the value of pure white. You need to drag the upper right top of the curve downwards, something many people wouldn't realize. You can also use Levels and drag the LOWEST right slider (the one underneath that gradient) to the left. It still won't be very pretty though, all you do is make white a little bit grey.

--
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Clone tool is the way to go if you want to avoid boundary conditions. Charge extra for this stuff while you can; the photography talent out there is getting worse every day and pretty soon some bright person will come up with a tragic, half-assed "bloom eliminator" or something like that that the market will think is just wonderfull. It won't be, but they will be happy.

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 20:52:48 GMT, Joal Heagney
wrote:

ZONED! wrote:

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:23:31 GMT, Joal Heagney
wrote:

Brian wrote:

wrote:

I have a few pretty good pictures i took with one big problem, they have flash reflections (glare?), that is the washed out white spot due to taking a picture of a reflective surface with a flash (it was a take-it-before-it-passes kinda thing and i forgot about the flash).
Is there a way to get rid of or reduce the flash whiteness from the picture using Photoshop (CS) or Gimp?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Gaiko

If it's a reflection off a metallic/plastic surface, one thing you can do is the following:

1. Select by colour the glare area.
2. Feather selection.
3. Use Curves to reduce the intensity of the spots.

Joal.

If the spots are truly "washed out" meaning no info exept the purest white... that will not help.

Not necessarily. If the spots are small enough, by using curves they tend to stand out less in the overall image. I used it once on a beach scene (Damn me if I didn't wipe the images off my hard-drive though.) to deemphasis the litter on the sand. Also, that's where the feather selection comes in - by blurring into the rest of the image, you regain pseudo-information. *grins*

Joal

It looks like crap to me *s*

ZONED! wrote:

It looks like crap to me *s*

Oh well. As they say Your Mileage May Vary.

Joal

Joal Heagney wrote:

ZONED! wrote:

It looks like crap to me *s*

Oh well. As they say Your Mileage May Vary.

Joal

Well, I made an offer to Gaiko right at the start of this thread, that if he/she sent me a pic as an example, I would fix it up and explain how I went about it. I guess some people don't really want help at all.

Brian.

As others have pointed out, you'll struggle to get an acceptable result if the areas are completely blown. But one method I find useful if there is at least SOME detail is to create a new layer and use the Clone (or sometimes Healing) brush set in DARKEN mode. You can then adjust the opacity of the layer until you get something you are happy(ish) with.

"Joal Heagney" wrote in message

Brian wrote:

wrote:

I have a few pretty good pictures i took with one big problem, they have flash reflections (glare?), that is the washed out white spot due to taking a picture of a reflective surface with a flash (it was a take-it-before-it-passes kinda thing and i forgot about the flash).
Is there a way to get rid of or reduce the flash whiteness from the picture using Photoshop (CS) or Gimp?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Gaiko

If it's a reflection off a metallic/plastic surface, one thing you can do is the following:

1. Select by colour the glare area.
2. Feather selection.
3. Use Curves to reduce the intensity of the spots.

Joal.