What’s Your Preference?

tinwhistle · #11 (**permalink**) 02-10-2010, 12:54 AM

ypurcaro, your question about the dirty snow is valid. My goal is to creat a "mood" with my image. I'll attach a pic that I took through the windshield while my wife was driving. You will notice that it was a horrible, miserable day. The image portrays that, dirty snow and all. The other attachment is of "sun spots". Don't be afraid of sun spots or glare, they can set the mood for your shot. Your pic has at least one sun spot; they are caused by sun beams bouncing around inside of the lens. The other spot you have is actually the outline of the appature inside of the lens, careful examination you will see the edges of the blades. Once again caused by beams bouncing around inside the lens. Again I have no problem with any of those anomalies. If you want, we could talk about composition and the road being "blown out"...Chris

bdbolin · #12 (**permalink**) 02-11-2010, 01:40 AM

I usually enjoy the look of a lens flare - unless it's extremely bad. Just use your lenshood if you don't like them.

nanbil · #13 (**permalink**) 02-13-2010, 03:27 PM

As mentioned already you can use the cloning tool to be rid of the sun spots over the mountain.

If you want to tone down the flare of the sun and glare of the road use a "darkening" tool. In PSP it's a brush that you can adjust transparence and density. Use low values for these parameters and go over the area you want to fix several times until the glare is toned down or gone.

sk66 · #14 (**permalink**) 02-13-2010, 04:23 PM

Since you were shooting directly into the sun, a lens hood would NOT have helped....A lens hood with the sun further out of field would help.

The sun flare itself is nice, I find the "spots" in the treeline distracting...I would clone them out.

rthakrar · #15 (**permalink**) 04-18-2010, 10:49 AM

I like sun flares and starbursts, sometimes but when they're not right they can be a pain.

Starburst - the starburst is a product of high f/stop, I believe. So you'd have to drop the f/stop and increase the shutter time (would probably need a tripod or I sometimes use my knee at low levels). This may also provide a softer feel than the harsher clipping in your highlight snow areas...

Sun flare - try moving the camera around slightly a few times to get the flare in the right place compositionally. Also, the higher quality lenses have different shapes and clarity of bokeh so I guess that would also apply to sun flare spots...?

Good luck!