Photography Bay

Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips

What is Lens Flare and How Can You Avoid It?

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Lens flare commonly occurs when shooting in the general direction bright light sources, whether they are a part of the image or not. The bright light creates internal reflections and scattering of light inside the lens, which results in artifacts or haze in the final image. A common scenario for producing lens flare is shooting into the sun.

In the above video, Karl Taylor shows us examples of lens flare and how to use a lens hood to avoid it. The lens hood serves the dual purpose of protecting the end of the lens in the field.

 

The Best Way to Use Lens Flares in Photoshop

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl09WHy_neg&w=700]

Here’s another great video from Phlearn that shows you how to use the lens flare filter in Photoshop. As you’ll see, the key is to using an appropriate backlit image and making sure that you align your flare source with the actual light source. But check out the video for some crucial tips on making the lens flare more natural.

How to Add & Remove Lens Flare in Photoshop

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zcoJq5sE30&w=640&h=360]

In this video, Photoshop Principal Product Manager Bryan O’Neil Hughes explains how to add and remove lens flare from an image.

Removing lens flare from an image is accomplished by using Content Aware tools in Photoshop CC. Hughes also shows how to non-destructively add lens flare to an image using layer blend modes with the lens flare filter.

camHoodie is Lens Hood for the iPhone and iPad mini to Reduce Lens Flare and Purple Haze

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camHoodie case

Earlier this week, I shared a new app from Perfectly Clear that uses a De-Purple filter to effectively desaturate the purple flare and haze encountered on the iPhone 5.  Fotodiox has a hardware solution, the camHoodie, which is a lens hood for the iPhone 5, 4S and 4, as well as the iPad mini to cut down on lens flare before it ever enters your images. [Read more…]

Perfectly Clear iOS App Update Includes De-Purple Setting to Correct Purple iPhone 5 Lens Flare

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Perfectly Clear

Perfectly Clear’s Version 3 of its iOS app is out and includes a software fix for the purple lens flare problem on the iPhone 5.

On its own, the Perfectly Clear app is a great little editing app for the iPhone that gives you solid results from a single click. It’s quite similar to the Awesomize feature in SmugMug’s Camera Awesome app – and for good reason . . . Camera Awesome’s Awesomize is powered by Perfectly Clear’s technology.

One of the things that sets Perfectly Clear’s app apart, however, is the one-click De-Purple setting that allows you to remove the oh-so-common purple lens flare from the iPhone 5 images.  In practice, it works quite well.  It’s just not spot-on every time as you can see in the images below. [Read more…]