Removing reflection glare from glasses

HP
Posted By
Hal_Plimpton
Dec 29, 2003
Views
431
Replies
18
Status
Closed
I’m a newbie to Elements 2.0 (under Dell Dimension 4500 – Win2000) and can’t seem to find a either a recipe or technique that deals with the issue of removing the glare in glasses in portraits. Is there a simple process?…best tools to use?…Can someone suggest a step-by-step fix?

Grateful for any constructive comments.

hveep

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BH
Beth_Haney
Dec 29, 2003
Has the glare totally eliminated the person’s eye, too? If so, the technique will be different.

If there’s just glare, but the eye is still visible, the first thing you should try is using the Clone tool and replacing the blown out areas of the lense by taking samples from a spot that’s still OK.

If the eye is eliminated, we can hope the same thing isn’t true of both eyes. If you’ve got one good one, you could select it with one of the selection tools, copy the selection, and then paste it in on the other side. If it’s too big or too small, it can be resized using the Move tool

If both of them are blown out, well… Can you find their eyes in another picture?!

Let us know how severe the problem is, and then someone can address this in more detail as it fits the situation.
JW
JP White
Dec 30, 2003
wrote:

I’m a newbie to Elements 2.0 (under Dell Dimension 4500 – Win2000) and can’t seem to find a either a recipe or technique that deals with the issue of removing the glare in glasses in portraits. Is there a simple process?…best tools to use?…Can someone suggest a step-by-step fix?

Grateful for any constructive comments.

hveep

I removed glare from a vehicle windshield by…

1. Selecting the windshield
2. Copy and paste to a new layer
3. Apply Multiply Blending Mode and then adjust opacity to suit.

I don’t know how well this will translate to glasses or if it will look good or not. It doesn’t eliminate the glare, just minimizes the glare. It is a quick and easy adjustment.

In Katrin Eismann’s Photo Retouching and Restoration book she suggests selecting the lenses and copying skin texture from elsewhere on the photo to fill the lens area (I.E. from the forehead). Unwanted elements from the copied area can be eliminated using the layer mask on the new layer to allow skin/eyes below to show through. Final adjustments can be made using the clone stamp tool. This method is pretty tricky and lengthy but will get better results as it eliminates the glare altogether.

Whichever method you use try to make sure you make an accurate and full selection of the lenses in the eyeglasses, this will make the edge of the adjustments imperceptible. The pen tool is probably the way to go to make the selection, it is well suited to objects with hard and regular edges, but is a tricky tool to master. You’d want to find as tutorial on the pen tool before futzing with it.

If you do much retouching then I would thoroughly recommend Katrin Eismann’s book. You can still get the first edition of this book at Amazon. It may sound odd to buy an older edition but it will suit an Elements user better since the second edition adds techniques using tools available in PS7 (such as the healing brush and patch tool which you don’t have).

JP
JC
Jane_Carter
Dec 30, 2003
I find that if you zoom WAY in, really way in, that you can pick the glare out with Clone tool. It is a bit tedious, but I managed after several tries. After clone, carefully paint in the color that should be there, still very zoomed in.
Go back to smaller and look, then zoom again and pick at some more glare. It takes extra time, but some of my pictures were OK. It was fun to see the glare go away slowly but surely.

I just did a dog’s eyes, and used the Burn and Dodge, just a little at a time. Opacity reduced. I am not very good at this(quite new at this), and perhaps use the wrong words, but there will be more advice coming. Just do a little at a time and you will be surprised at what you can accomplish. As Beth said, you can take a clear eye, and swap ends with it and put it in where the glare is unfixable.
Jane
LK
Leen_Koper
Dec 30, 2003
Glare hardly ever happens to me, but last Saturday I had an image that needed some removing of glare. I used the cole tool on a separate layer, removed it with the cloning tool, and afterwards I did set this layer at -if I remember well- about 70% opacity. This way it looks much more natural than removing it completely.

Leen
NS
Nancy_S
Dec 30, 2003
As Leen posted, I have also had good luck removing glare but I don’t remove ALL of it, leaving a little does look more natural in context to the lighting in the image.
JF
Jodi_Frye
Dec 30, 2003
Yup, agree with that Nancy, sometimes it’s better to leave well enough alone because the alterations can sometimes look worse than what you started with. ‘ Subtle’ is key in these matters for sure.
BH
Beth_Haney
Dec 30, 2003
"alterations can sometimes look worse than what you started with"

You’ve been looking at my edits again, haven’t you Jodi! 🙂
LK
Leen_Koper
Dec 30, 2003
As Jürgen will know, the Germans have a wonderfull word in their language: "verschlimmbessern"

"Verschlimmbessern" is a combination of the words "schlimm" = bad and "verbessern"= to improve.

Something like "Improving till it is worse than ever before"

This technique of "verschlimmbessern" of images is very familiar to me. ;-(

Leen
JF
Jodi_Frye
Dec 30, 2003
Beth, no I haven’t…want me to ? Happy New Year !!!

Leen, I’ll have to remember that word….ya , right….you are too hard on yourself ! How’s the new Epson ??
LK
Leen_Koper
Dec 30, 2003
The new Epson 7600 is a wonderful machine, provided it does what I bought it for….. I wasted about $400 on ink and paper.

Now I have a new printer head and it works OK again, but I have to get used to a nozzle cleaning almost each day and a "power clean" every two weeks. This really is a high volume machine and it needs to work as much as possible to avoid problems with those nozzles.

But, when it does what it is supposed to do, the results are really amazing! An excellent quality! Today I printed an extremely high key image and an extremely low key image for my shop window, together with some other 20"x30" prints. Amazing quality and despite the problems I had before I’m very enthousiastic about it.
I’ve printed about 240 feet of paper until now, 24" wide, and, if I don’t have any problems with my printer head, about 95% is saleable! I suppose I will have earned the money back within less than a year. My printing costs have been reduced by about 70%.

Within a month I will have my set up profiled for a Hahnemühle fine art paper and I will start to print giclée prints from paintings for a local artist whose paintings -and probably the prints I am to make of these paintings- sell extremely well in American art galeries.
This probably opens new markets as I am one of the few people around who can print on demand.

Leen
JF
Jodi_Frye
Dec 30, 2003
Well Leen, i wish you the very best of luck…especially for the new year ! You are right…print buying in the USA is a big business. Most can’t afford the actual painting so second best is a beautiful print to frame for the wall which sometimes looks nicer than the orginal painting if matted and framed correctly. I’m certain you’ll be busy ! Great !
HP
Hal_Plimpton
Dec 30, 2003
Wow…you folks are terrific. This is the best and fastest response I have received from a bulletin board. Will try the various approaches you have suggested.

A terrific and focused (if that’s what you want) New Year to you all.

Cheers…..hveep
HP
Hal_Plimpton
Dec 30, 2003
I didn’t mention another technique I have used successfully to avoid the glare (time and circumstances permitting)…. is to remove the lens from the frames. But then PS Elements 2.0 wouldn’t be of much use … but then you may need to fix the squinty eyes <grin>

hveep
LK
Leen_Koper
Dec 30, 2003
Hal, NEVER remove the lens from the frame. You will always notice something is wrong. People used to lenses will look in a different way and, most important, lenses distort a face slightly and this distortion is essential. If it isn’t there, you will notice someting is missing.

Leen
HP
Hal_Plimpton
Dec 30, 2003
Interesting… the thickness of my glasses, for example, is large, there is a distortion of head shots as seen through the lens… removing them seemed to cure the distortion.

Appreciate your feedback.

Regds…hveep
KL
Kenneth_Liffmann
Dec 31, 2003
Leen,
"Verschlimmbessern" transliterates in to "The enemy of good is perfection," as a good friend of mine likes to say. Anyway, I just improved a picture with lens glare quite a bit with cloning the left pupil on to the right one, as the glare partially obscured the right. Now that this disparity has been rectified, it no longer draws attention.

Ken
JD
Juergen_D
Dec 31, 2003
Leen,

Right, and I have certainly ‘verschlimmbessert’ quite a few times, too.

Juergen
P
PQ
Dec 31, 2003
On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 15:29:45 -0800,
wrote:

I’m a newbie to Elements 2.0 (under Dell Dimension 4500 – Win2000) and can’t seem to find a either a recipe or technique that deals with the issue of removing the glare in glasses in portraits. Is there a simple process?…best tools to use?…Can someone suggest a step-by-step fix?

Grateful for any constructive comments.

hveep

Lots of excellent suggestions given here. As you can see, however–removing glare from glasses can be time-consuming and quite difficult to do correctly. Let me just add that the best solution to this is to avoid the problem altogether by keeping your flash well above the camera to prevent the glare from occuring in the first place. I always position my flash on a StroboFrame bracket that allows both vertical and horizontal camera position while maintaining a consistent, high flash position. Also I try to use a diffusing "bare bulb" adapter as much as possible, or a bounce reflector card, keeping the flash directed straight up, rather than at the subject. Not only will you find that redeye and eyeglass reflections are minimized or eliminated, but the quality of your photos will likely be much improved.

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