Help with removing flash glare from wall

[6d5321]

sorry if this has been tackled before. I need help removing, or greatly reducing the flash glare from the wall.
I thought about making a selection from the lower left wall, copy to new layer, place where needed and masking in over the glare... but then I noticed that the wall paper isn't a consistant pattern & the camera angle changes the shape so the wallpaper images dont aline up.

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, especially detailed suggestions.

thanks!

[Pics2]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

You can paste a part of the wall without the flare on it. IMO, it's best to paste the part near her left arm, since you have horizontal frame there, too.
Sometimes, if you shot this picture and if the location is near by, the best thing to do is to reshoot the wall alone. Or hire a professional photographer if the event is important to you.

[Cameraken]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

Hi

Or it’s easy to correct with a radial mask.

Unusual Wall

Ken

[chillin]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

To get rid of the wallpaper wrinkles I did some cloning on the background.

[skoobey]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

Removing it completely gets you a silly result.

I would paste it to remove it completely, than put a gradient that mimics the original reflection, but at lower opacity.

It has to be there, just not as much.

[chillin]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

Removing it completely gets you a silly result.

I would paste it to remove it completely, than put a gradient that mimics the original reflection, but at lower opacity.

It has to be there, just not as much.

Maybe to simulate a different light source, not necessarily a snap flash.

[Pics2]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

Hi

Or it’s easy to correct with a radial mask.

Unusual Wall

Ken

Great tip, very useful. I feel like removing my advice now, yours is so much - spot on, but literally.

[6d5321]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

Hi

Or it’s easy to correct with a radial mask.

Unusual Wall

Ken

Thats exactly what I'm needing to do to this image Cameraken. Looks great! Would you mind breaking down your the layers? I understand how to mask, but I never work with levels & I'm not sure what your top layer is. Anyhow, thanks pointing me in the right direction.

[Cameraken]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

Hi.

Thank You all for your kind comments.

To correct this picture I used radial gradient masks on levels adjustment layers.

The first radial gradient is shown in the first picture below
The levels for this layer were set to 0 - 0.48 - 255
This adjustment also darkens the faces so I painted onto the mask in black to correct the faces. (see the second picture below)

The image is now better and You could stop here if you agree with skoobey. It does look more natural with a little flash effect left in.

To remove the flash completely I added another levels adjustment layer with another radial gradient.
This mask is shown in picture 3 below and the levels for this layer were set to 0 - 0.10 – 255

The luminosity is now looking good but the adjustments have made the area blue so I added a layer set to colour and painted back the correct colour (top layer)
This is shown in the last picture below – It’s pretty messy – but it works.
I saved this layer as a png file to preserve transparency so it may not paste into your picture correctly. Use the move tool to move it upwards to the top of the picture and then set blending mode of this layer to colour.

I am still using Photoshop7 it still does everything I need. There may be other/better/easier ways to do this in later CS versions.

Hope this helps. If you need any more help then just ask.

Regards

Ken

[Aladdin]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

Thanks Cameraken for the illustration.

To be honest, there is nothing new in current version of PS that will do this better.
Adjustment layers and smart objects are the last useful things Adobe added to PS a while back, anything else, is just bells & whistles to feed the starving cash cow. Besides, this type of fix, can't be ever automated, this is what sets the Man from the Boys. Cheers

[6d5321]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

Cameraken. thanks again. I used your 'levels' settings as a starting point and played around a bit to achieved a look that I'm happy with. The thing that helped me the most was the top layer set to color.

[spinq]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

I go about thing like this in a bit different way. If you use inverted high pass technique select the colour layer. Sample the colour from area without the flash glare. Select the brush tool and set the blending mode of it to luminocity. Paint over the area with the glare and u should get a decent result.

[Aladdin]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

@spinq: Thanks for sharing this, I have a lot of notes regarding the the inverted high pass, however, I don't find any reference to color layer, would you please elaborate on the color layer (where on the layer stack) or if you have a link to a tutorial, will be highly appreciated. Thanks

[spinq]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

Since english is not my first language my comments may be misinterpreted. I lack some vocabulary.

For me inverted high pass technique is something like this:
1) make 2 copies of background.
2) blur the bottom copy (im using dust and scratches tool)
3) use apply image on the top to get high pass layer (source - bottom copy, blending mode add, and since im using 16bit images - select invert)
4) select the blending mode of high pass layer to linear light.

so we got more less same image as background but with separation of texture and colour and luminocity. This how I see it and will gladly be corrected if i'm mistaken. If i sample the colour from area that was lighted by flash but doesnt have a glare and select the blending mode of brush to luminocity you should be able to more less remove the glare. That is if there is still any colour behind it.

[Aladdin]

Re: Help with removing flash glare from wall

Thank you so much. Got it.