how do you reduce glare on water photo

[Jerry Hunt Jr]

using elements how do i reduce or remove glare or light reflecting off of a water photo? next time i will use a filter on my digital camera to help with this.

[Susan S.]

If the glare is so severe that there is no information - the white is completely burnt out - then apart from cloning from less overexposed parts of the image there isn't much you can do. I have added a polarising filter to my G3 which helps a bit. But with digital cameras it can be hard to fit in the full range of contrast in a sunlit scene. Particularly under Australian lighting conditions! It's best to underexpose so that some detail is left in the highlights and then use Elements to bring up the shadow detail.

Susan S

[Nancy S]

Jerry,

You might try; pulling up a Levels Adjustment Layer and move the bottom scale inwards (the Output) on the right hand side. Moving the white point to a lesser value will redefine your brightest pixels to 'less bright'. Since your histogram will extend all the way to the right edge of graph, this is a method for compensating that maxed out situation which sometimes yields decent results, it depends on the image though.

Edit: Depending on the image, you could also try selecting that overly bright area with the lasso tool (with a feather) and applying the above. Best done with a mask to ensure ease of change.

Nancy