How to Use Photoshop Elements to Remove Glare from Glasses
- Method 1: Handling Overall Glare?
- Method 2: Dealing with Random Glare
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
When I ask what type of things people want to learn about digital photography, just about everyone mentions removing glare and reflections from glasses. Even as popular as those anti-reflective coatings have become, you’ll still find people who don’t have that type of coating on their glasses. You probably won’t notice glare or reflections when you’re taking the photo, but later on, believe me, you’ll see it. Here’s how to fix the problem.
Method 1: Handling Overall Glare
Use this technique if your photo is easy to work with and there is a reflection over all of the glass in the glasses.
For this example, I have a photo with an even reflection over all of the glass in the glasses (see Figure 1). With this problem, you’re in luck, because it’s fairly simple to fix. The next method that I’ll show you is a bit more involved.
)
Figure 1 Image © ISTOCKPHOTO/SANG NGUYEN.
- First, we need to make a selection of the inside of the glasses. I like the Selection Brush for this purpose, so get that tool from the Toolbox (see Figure 2) or just press A to get it. (The Selection Brush tool is nested with the Magic Selection Brush in the Toolbox.)
- The Selection Brush works just like a regular brush does—you paint with it by clicking and dragging with your mouse. Each brush stroke creates a selection. Go ahead and start painting inside the glasses here to select them (see Figure 3).
- If you accidentally go outside the glasses when brushing, as shown in Figure 4, just press and hold down the Alt (Mac: Option) key and paint over those areas to remove them from the selection.
- Once you’ve completed your selection, go to the top of the Layers palette, click the Create Adjustment Layer icon, and choose Levels (see Figure 5).
- When the Levels dialog opens, drag the black point slider on the left toward the right (see Figure 6), until the area inside the glasses begins to match the area around the glasses. If you can’t get it perfect, try dragging the middle (midtones) slider to the left or right a little, and that should get you there. Click OK and you’re done (see Figure 7).
)
)
)
)
)
)