Can I clean these photos up?

[tmphillips]

Hello there! I was doing some photo editing tonight and noticed these reflective halos/lines (don't know the technical term for this) all along the front of this seagull in these shots and can't figure out how to remove/clean them. (I mainly use the Gimp for editing)...

I obviously didn't expose right and it appears to have to do with the blown highlights.. I tried to heal/blur/clone the areas but the reflective lines don't seem to be able to be painted over.. (I could just be tired, but I've cleaned up quite a few dust spots before and these lines won't clean up the same way)

So I am fine with just throwing these shots out, but remain curious if there is a way to clean these lines up.. The only way I've found so far is to darken the water area to almost nil to get rid of the lines..

Thanks for any input!





[by the way, taken with Pentax K100D and Tamron 70-300mm LD]

[RexK_Cozumel]

Did you sharpen them? The halo effect can be caused by over sharpening.

[tmphillips]

the bird is sharpened in these edits, but the halos are there and visible like this in the originals...

[Darth Marty]

I cant see these as that bad, if you hadnt mentioned it I wouldnt have even noticed.

[tmphillips]

I hear ya. I thought I was about finished editing the first one when I noticed it.. then I started noticing the halos on a bunch of shots.. I think this is also an issue/limitation with my lens, because I have also noticed the halos on other shots now from that same trip where the highlights weren't blown, but there was still a lot of contrast around the beak area..

I've heard that there is a "LD DI" version of my lens (I have the "LD" version) where they reduced purple fringing with the addition of coatings to the lens (I didn't retain any more technical detail than that) and I bet the haloing was reduced too by whatever they did.. But hey, I got my LD version for $75 so I can't complain much (except that I didn't know there were different versions at the time and would have paid the extra $25 or so for the DI version)..

If I discover a way to deal with these halos, I'll be sure to report back.. ;-)

[hugy789]

I really dont think they're, a problem and don't throw them away!!!! they're amazing shots