How can I remove flash spots from silver colored objects?

[Patricia Miglin]

Hello guys,


I have attached some pictures, you can notice the flash spots due to reflection on silver color. What's the best way to remove these spots and improve the photo quality. (I understand the best way is to shoot the photos in a specific environment to disallow this effect, but I am asking if there is away to edit it using Lightroom and remove the flash effect).

 

[egosbar]

clone tool id use

 

[Tom Mann]

You are essentially asking how to fill in missing parts of a photo. I'm glad you are aware that the best way to control reflections is when you are lighting the object, not afterwards, but that being said, there are numerous ways to help out after the fact.

Probably, my favorite method is to use the patch tool (in "normal" mode, not "content-aware" mode). I illustrated this by the attached screen capture which shows the area after patching, but with the selection boundary still visible. The nice thing about this method is that if it works, it's very, very fast. I use it all the time to fix oily reflective areas of skin on portraits.

Another good approach is simply to find a suitable area that isn't blown out, copy and transform it to fit the blown area, and then blend the replacement in using a layer mask. This would be a nice approach for the 2nd blow area in that image, where you could sample the opposite side of the ring and then flip and rotate it to fit around the blown area.

Don't forget that you never want to completely eliminate reflections --- they define the metallic nature of the material.

T