Photoshop CS3 technique for repairing lens flair?

I posted this question to the Photoshop CS3 forum and am waiting for responses,

so I thought I would try the experts here. Does anyone have a good recipe for

repairing lens flare? It's pretty well defined in large circles that I'm

confident it can be repaired.

 

<img src="http://www.kdiphoto.com/images/LaveryTarr-1624.jpg">

 

 

This is an untouched export of the RAW file.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Keith

Difficult!<div></div>

OK, I guess I should have clarified - repairing the image by fixing the actual problem rather than duct-taping it with a cheesy vignette.

Haha, you are right.

 

I don't really like vignettes too, though cheesy is a bid harsh a word. As I said, I know of now other option than cloning with the stamp. You will also like to crop of some of the surrounding, and concentrate on the pair.

 

Good luck!

Keith,

 

This is almost impossible to repair invisibly. Didn't you see this in the viewfinder? You

really need to use a lens shade or have an assistant block the sun from the lens, but I'm

sure you figured that out!

 

It's really hard to select these flares and adjust them to match smoothly. I tried but failed

as the selection and color matching were very difficult. And that was just to the flare over

the subject's heads. The other flare is best served by cropping it out.

 

In the end I decided "if you can't beat em, join em". So, I added more flare and decided it

was art.<div></div>

The top flare will be the easy one -- throw an adjustment layer or two in and an

appropriately gentle layer mask and it'll fade away.

 

The bottom one... You're about to get intimate with the clone stamp and/or heal tools if

you want to fix that up. You got lucky in that there's no real detail there beyond the

bench, so I'd probably just recreate the groom's leg and the back wall and remove the

bench altogether.

I think the photographer had some hard refreshments during the shoot not to notice this. You can clone the wall to replace what is missing at the bottom, otherwise, just crop (no detail to work with).<div></div>