Removing Sun Spot - PaintShop Pro X6

[Lisa73]

Good morning,

I did some photos last weekend and it wasn't until I returned home that I realized several pictures have a sunspot. I have been reading and researching and not finding a successful solution. Please help.

JPEG format
Size: 3.48MB
Program: Corel PaintShop Pro X6
No Error Codes, just struggling with navigating within the software to fix the pictures.

Thanks in advance for your help
Lisa

[hartpaul]

Sunspot
-a dark region on the sun Nah!!
- a white spot on the skin -- possibly ??
- a lens flare from shooting towards the sun so it hits the front of the lens -- possibly ??
- a spot of sunlight on a face as through a gap in trees , hole in building -- possibly ??
Probably best if you post an example.

[Lisa73]

Good point, sorry. I'm a bit green at this.

Here's one of the pictures. I haven't started editing it as I don't want to spend the time making adjustments if I can't get rid of the obvious problem.

**not sure how this is going to come out, I'm having a hard time trying to get it into the right format for uploading...please be patient

Thanks,
Lisa

[hartpaul]

Resize itto anout 600 pixels on the long side. Image > Resize and in pixel Dimensions change whatever size is the largest to 600 and units to pixels.
If it then makes the spot too small then crop the section you want corrected it and make that 600 pixels.

[Lisa73]

Okay, so for some reason I cannot seem to get the picture to post. Sigh. I have tried changing the file from BMP, JPEG, PNG, IMG, GIF - no dice.

Thoughts?

It's hard to explain what I am seeing on the picture.

[hartpaul]

With an image the right size, I generally upload them to Photobucket.
Once there you can get a link and then post that llink in the forum.
Or you could load it to Flickr and provide a link there as well.
Do a google search on sharing photos - plenty of sites that allow that.
Good youtube video on how to use photobucket.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yp1oHYlFJI

[Lisa73]

Wow, thanks hartpaul.

Let's see if I'm successful....2nd attempt...had to shrink the pic

[Ken Berry]

There are a variety of ways of dealing with that effect, and no doubt others will suggest better ways of producing better results. Personally, I tend to use, in situations like this, the clone brush. This is a very quick dealing with your photo, just to show that with even a bit more time, you might achieve something better and closer to the reality without that 'sun spot"!!

[hartpaul]

Congratulations on posting your first image. That is a lens flare and occurs because the lens is not shielded from the direct rays of the sun. Holding a hand or hat to shade the lens or changing location can prevent that.

There are a number of ways to make a correction. One is to just clone. I used cloning and a few other adjustments. Always work on a copy of the image . Edit > Copy. Edit > Paste as New Image . This was image 1.
1. Made a selection with the magic wand with the settings shown.


2. Used the clone tool to clone some of the trees into the flared tree area. Then removed the selection Selections > Select None - and finished the rest of the tree area. The cross hairs on right show the area I am copying (Right click to select) and the brush shows where it is being painted (Left click drag)
Also cloned some of the darker hair of the boy to blend it into the lighter area.



3. Made a copy of the image and mirrored it. Edit > Copy , Edit > Paste as New image.(this was Image 2) Image > Mirror. (have marked out the area of hair I want to add to the flared image.


4. Then Edit > Copy and Edit > Paste as New Layer (Raster1) on top of the flared and partially corrected Image 1 (Background). I then promoted the background layer to a full raster layer (Raster 2) Layers > Promote Background Layer. Then Left Click and drag Raster 1 below Raster 2. This places the mirrored hair beneath the part corrected layer.
Selecting that top layer (Raster 2) I changed the opacity of that layer so I could see the layer beneath.
I then made the bottom layer active and selected the Move Tool and holding the Shift key down moved the lower layer so that the good hair was beneath the flared hair.


5. Then made the top layer active again,. (just left click on a layer gray area to make that layer active ) . Choose the Eraser brush and with settings shown I erased a hole in the top layer so the hair showed through from Raster 1.


6. Finally change the opacity of that top layer back to 100 and do Layers > Merge > Merge all /Flatten. And the final image is shown.


Hope that helps.

To learn more about PSP there are plenty of video tutorials and written tuorials on the web.
A good course to give you a lot of the basics is found here:
http://bw-forums.com/

[Kathy_9]

And here's another example. I cloned out the lens flare and did a curves adjustment layer on the image to adjust the overall color. I didn't try to remove the sun on the woman and boys' hair because I felt that was realistic.

click for larger view

As you see there are many ways to go about this and the more you experiment the more you will lean about PSP. Have fun!!!

[Lisa73]

OMG you guys are all great! Wow! Thank you so much for taking the time to play with the picture and then more time to explain to me what you've done. You guys rock!

[trueblue]

Here's another example. I'm not sure your son's hair is correct as the sunspot was masking it.

[MarkZ]

A number of people have suggested cloning for the light patch in the trees. I have found that for such a "messy" background it is sometimes better to select a portion of the trees and paste that into a layer under the top layer that will be seen, then erase the offending portion. The leaves that will be exposed through the "hole" are continuous, whereas when cloning they can be quite patchy. Another advantage with this method is that the lower layer can be moved around for a best match with the top layer; with cloning if you are unhappy with the source selected for cloning you need to start again. Feather the edges of the hole for a seamless look.

[Lisa73]

Excellent, thank you everyone!! So helpful!

Lisa