Got flare in your HDR photo? Remove it with your finger

Saturday 30 July 2022, 15:15 by Nando Harmsen | 4,529 views | 2 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

You use HDR techniques when the dynamic range of your landscape is too wide to capture in a single photo. But this often means there is a bright light source in your image, such as the sun. That can cause flare.

By taking this into account while photographing, you can easily remove the flare later.

For an HDR shot, you take an exposure bracket. I always use five exposures with a one-stop difference in exposure between each shot.

This often captures enough dynamic range in your photo series. Unfortunately, sunlight often causes distracting flare.

An exposure bracket lets you capture an enormous dynamic range.
Removing flare is easy in post-processing if it is not too large. But sometimes flare can take on very troublesome shapes and become so dominant that it is almost impossible to remove. The photo I took in Iceland is a good example of this.

The bright sun causes distracting flare. Removing it with software can be difficult or almost impossible.
So check the photos you have just taken while you are still on location to see if you can spot any flare. If you see one in the image, take another exposure bracket, but make sure you block the sun with a finger or hand. Because the light source is no longer shining into your lens, the flare disappears.

Take a second exposure bracket with your hand in front of the bright sun, and the flare disappears.
It is important that the exposures in your bracket remain the same, and that you do not move the camera between the two exposure brackets. A tripod is therefore essential. The technique also only works with a wide-angle lens.

You now have two exposure brackets, one with flare and the other with your hand in the frame. Merge them separately into an HDR shot and edit both in exactly the same way, entirely according to your own preferences.

Then open both photos as layers on top of each other in Photoshop or a programme such as Affinity Photo.

By opening both HDR shots as layers in Photoshop, you can easily remove the hand or flare with a mask.
You can now easily use a mask to mask the hand out of the photo without flare. Or mask the flare out of the photo without the hand, whichever is easiest. This gives you a great final result without troublesome flare.

The final result of the landscape photo. It took some preparation on location, but this result can be achieved very quickly and easily in post-processing.
It is important with this technique to spot and prepare for this on location. Afterwards, this is of course no longer possible.

But also remember that flare can sometimes look good and add atmosphere to a photo. So later, when you are back home, decide which image you like best: with or without flare.

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