Removing Dust Spots, Lens Flare, and Power Lines In Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5

In the first four versions of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom we were able to hide dust spots in our photos, but removing larger objects required a trip over to Adobe Photoshop CS6 for more powerful tools. Until now, we have only been able to work with small round brushes when retouching images in Photoshop Lightroom. A round brush is great for covering over a flaw like a dust spot or pimple, but it is useless when you need to remove something linear like a power line or a stray hair. With the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 upgrade, we now have the power to create other brush shapes plus the magic of Content Aware Healing.

When we remove an object from a photograph, the flaw must be covered over with something else. If, for example, you have a dust spot against a blue sky, then copying and pasting a clean piece of blue sky over the blemish is an excellent solution. This is what we have done in Photoshop Lightroom for many years. The trouble though, when removing larger objects, is that the human eye is very good at detecting repetition and pattern. Removing something larger than a dust spot is challenging because we need to first cover the flaw with a patch that blends into the surrounding area and then make sure that the patch itself is not recognizable as a clone from some other part of the image. When the eye detects too much repetition, things look phony.

Adobe Lightroom 5 Image Repair Tips: Often the best way to remove a larger object from an image is to use multiple passes. Try overlapping multiple Content Aware Healing Brush strokes at a reduced Brush Opacity to create a seamless blend that shows no signs of repetition. Also, if you want to use the old Healing Brush behavior, hold down the Command key (Mac) / Control key (PC) while dragging with the spot removal tool.

Lens flare spots and annoying logo removed using the new Content Aware Healing Brush in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.

via TheLightroomLab.com http://thelightroomlab.com/2013/06/removing-dust-spots-lens-flare-and-power-lines-in-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-5/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=removing-dust-spots-lens-flare-and-power-lines-in-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-5