Flare and a fix?

fire1035

Hey folks,

Just returned home from San Diego and am looking for some help on a couple of images. The first is a sunset at Torrey Pines State beach. We got lucky and didn't have any fog one night. So down to the beach we go. Perfect sunset. However I ended up with some flare. Can this be fixed after the fact? If not how can I prevent this on the next trip?

fire1035

The second I just need to know if it can be lightened. I had to hand my camera off to a passerby to take a picture of myself, wife and son. The flash would not fire for some reason so it came out far to dark.

I am a photoshop dummy so I don't know how to even begin.

Thanks!

Richard

fire1035 wrote:

Can this be fixed after the fact? If not how can I prevent this on the next trip?

It should be fairly easy to clone it out altogether in PS. Not sure about preventing it...don't use a UV filter though.

pyry

Give the clone stamp or the patch tool a try with the first image. Next time, you could just wait for the sun to be just a sliver and/or put it right in the middle - that makes the heaviest flare effects go away and you just lose a bit of contrast. Or compose so that the flare exits the frame.

Clone stamped:


The second is a goner, I'm afraid. The background is overexposed and the foreground looks too dark to fix in post. Did your helper take more than one shot? I'm thinking maybe the flash just wasn't charged up.

jfriend

fire1035 wrote:

The second I just need to know if it can be lightened. I had to hand my camera off to a passerby to take a picture of myself, wife and son. The flash would not fire for some reason so it came out far to dark.

I am a photoshop dummy so I don't know how to even begin.

Thanks!

There's not much that can be done to the 2nd image. With a larger version of the image, it is possible to restore some detail in the people, but it's full of noise and will never look like a great photo because it is so far underexposed.