Lens flare on the bottom removed

[MacZilla]

Our daughter was in Hawaii when they took this photo on a Canon Rebel, she asked me to remove it yet I've never done a lens flare like this, mostly cleaning up scratches and dust using CS2 and CS4.

Any edit would be Grateful and Thankful,
Thank You


.

 

[ex_teacher]

My best shot at it.

 

[ex_teacher]

I didn't even notice that hand shaped heart because I was so fixated on the flair but that heart is a beautiful touch on a beautiful photo. However it bothered me a bit that it wasn't centered over the background.

Enter more Photoshop. Moving both arms, and making it look like I didn't, was tricky.

 

[[ iLLuSioN ]]

Nice idea - but you missed his fingers...

 

[ex_teacher]

We are always kept honest around here Thank you.

 

[JeffK]

@ex_teacher - great restoration work. And yes, [ iLLuSioN ] does us look twice!

Could you provide some insight into your process. I had the most trouble with the skin. Not an easy edit....

 

[MacZilla]

Most Grateful
I'd love to know the process. In time I hope to learn how to do it.

Thank You,
Tom and Sharon

 

[ex_teacher]

One of the nice things about being here on this site and working with such a versatile program as Photoshop is seeing the numerous ways others approach these projects.

Right from the beginning I thought the easiest way to restore the ‘shadow grass’ was to cut out a large section of sunlit grass, darken it and then replacing all shadow. That worked but it required more fiddling than I expected. It worked but it was not a particularly good strategy, I think.

I approached the legs differently. Flare wipes out a lot of the tonality and ruins local contrast I started out by creating a layer with the affected area and doing a quick levels adjustment. I used ‘Clarity’ to get the localized contrast back. Topaz has a powerful Clarity plugin tool but I used the less versatile clarity in the Camera RAW filter and quickly fiddled with a few other parameters mainly striving for tonal accuracy not color. I used the burn-midtones tool and feathered in approximate tonality. I then sampled skin tones right above the flare and painted each foot with the Brush tool using ‘color mode’ (Those three grouped modes on the bottom of the mode dropdown menu are incredibly powerful.) The two feet/ankles are different colors BTW. That went quickly although I had to alternate a few times between burning in the tonality and brushing color back in until I liked the result. I even posted one iteration and the leading foot looked too light. I rushed back in to PS, darkened it and painted ‘color’ (which is actually painting Hue and Saturation). I then replaced the old with the new image.

Bruce

 

[JeffK]

One of the nice things about being here on this site and working with such a versatile program as Photoshop is seeing the numerous ways others approach these projects.

Right from the beginning I thought the easiest way to restore the ‘shadow grass’ was to cut out a large section of sunlit grass, darken it and then replacing all shadow. That worked but it required more fiddling than I expected. It worked but it was not a particularly good strategy, I think.

I approached the legs differently. Flare wipes out a lot of the tonality and ruins local contrast I started out by creating a layer with the affected area and doing a quick levels adjustment. I used ‘Clarity’ to get the localized contrast back. Topaz has a powerful Clarity plugin tool but I used the less versatile clarity in the Camera RAW filter and quickly fiddled with a few other parameters mainly striving for tonal accuracy not color. I used the burn-midtones tool and feathered in approximate tonality. I then sampled skin tones right above the flare and painted each foot with the Brush tool using ‘color mode’ (Those three grouped modes on the bottom of the mode dropdown menu are incredibly powerful.) The two feet/ankles are different colors BTW. That went quickly although I had to alternate a few times between burning in the tonality and brushing color back in until I liked the result. I even posted one iteration and the leading foot looked too light. I rushed back in to PS, darkened it and painted ‘color’ (which is actually painting Hue and Saturation). I then replaced the old with the new image.
Bruce

Tried it...tried it all...tried other things. Just didn't work. You did a great job @ex_teacher

 

[JeffK]

I just couldn't let this go...gave it one last college try...and it's been years since I've been in college...