How to fix lens flare and keep your photos clean and contrasty?

This simple guide shows practical fixes for shooting and editing. It is written in plain steps you can follow on set or at your desk.

We explain what lens flare is and the difference between ghosting and veiling. You’ll learn how to identify flare, run quick field tests, and stop it on set.

Then we cover camera settings, hoods and filter tips, and how to remove flare in Lightroom to Photoshop. A quick-fix cheat sheet, annotated images, and sample settings make it easy to practice and get results fast.

What is Lens Flare?

Lens flare is stray light bouncing around inside your lens or off filters and the sensor, which leaks into the image. It shows up as bright artifacts and a gray haze that reduces contrast.

There are two main flavors. Ghosting is the string of orbs, polygons, or shapes that mirror the light source, while veiling flare is a milky wash that lowers contrast across the frame.

The cause is simple physics: internal reflections between lens elements, reflections on filter surfaces, or even light bouncing off the sensor and back. Off-frame light sources can cause it as easily as a sun sitting in the frame.

You will notice it most in backlit portraits, sunsets, night scenes with streetlights, and when shooting through windows or car windshields. Learn to spot it early and you will know exactly how to fix lens flare before it ruins the shot.

For a deeper primer on the optics behind ghosting and veiling, see more on ghosting. Visual guide suggestion for this section: one labeled image showing a ghost orb on the left and veiling haze on the right with the caption, “Ghosting (left) and veiling flare (right) — different problems, different fixes.” Suggested alt text: “ghosting vs veiling flare example.”

How to Identify Lens Flare in Your Photos

Start with the symptoms. Look for round or polygon shapes that line up with a bright source, a washed-out look in highlights and midtones, strange color tints, and starbursts shaped like your aperture blades.

Step 1: zoom in to the problem areas and search for repeating shapes that mimic the light source. If the sun is round, little round orbs often echo across the frame in a line.

Step 2: move your camera slightly and watch whether the artifact shifts in a predictable way. When the ghost moves opposite or along with the light source, that is a strong sign of internal reflection.

Step 3: retake the shot with the hood on, then off, then remove any filter and try again, and finally try different apertures. Note which change reduces the flare the most because that points to the cause.

Step 4: open the histogram and check for clipped highlights or an overall flat, low-contrast curve. Veiling flare often lifts the blacks and compresses midtones, which the histogram will show clearly.

Try a quick field test on a sunny day. Shoot the sun at 10 to 15 degree increments as you pan, then repeat with and without a filter and with the hood on and off, and write down what changed.

If you want more background on what lens flare is and how to tame it at the source, read this clear explainer on how to avoid lens flare. Visual suggestion for this section: annotated crops of a ghost orb, a before and after with the hood, and a short animation that shows the artifact moving as the angle shifts. Suggested alt text: “ghost flare close-up,” “hood on vs hood off comparison,” and “lens flare movement with camera angle.”

How to Prevent Lens Flare

Use a lens hood every time the scene includes strong light, even at night. Petal hoods should be aligned so the petals match the frame orientation, which stops them from intruding into the corners on wide lenses.

Shade the lens with your hand, a hat brim, or a small flag when the hood is not enough. Keep the shade just out of frame and watch live view to ensure you do not cast a shadow on your subject or create vignetting.

Remove unnecessary filters and avoid stacking them. If you must keep one, choose a high-quality multi-coated filter and test it in bright backlight to see if it flares.

Keep the front element and filters clean. A fast routine is blower first, then a dry microfiber wipe, then a few drops of lens cleaner in circular motions from center to edge.

Change your perspective or framing slightly so the bright source does not send a direct path into the lens. A small sidestep, a lower camera height, or tucking the sun behind a tree or roofline can fix the shot instantly.

Use matte-black accessories that do not reflect, such as hoods with flocked interiors or black lens collars. Even a shiny filter ring can bounce light back into the lens in extremes.

Know your glass. Some primes handle flare better than zooms, and modern nano coatings can be magical, but do not assume anything; test at various angles and apertures and keep notes on each lens.

DIY tools can help. A small piece of black card on a clamp or a compact flag on a grip arm lets you shade the lens without your hand in the frame; just make sure it is secure and not blocking autofocus or metering sensors.

Be safe when working with the sun. Do not stare through an optical viewfinder at high noon; use live view and an angled shade to protect your eyes and your sensor.

Common mistake to avoid: leaving a UV or protective filter on for everything. That glass layer can be the main source of the ghosts you see.

Common mistake to avoid: shading the lens so aggressively that you cover AF sensors or create a shadow across the scene without noticing. Watch the edges of the frame and check each take.

Try a shooting checklist you can repeat anytime. Photograph the sun or a streetlight with the hood on and off, with and without a filter, and at least three apertures, then review the changes at home and label the results for future sessions.

For a practical walkthrough of field techniques that cut flare quickly, see how to eliminate lens flare in common scenarios. These habits will make how to fix lens flare easier later because you will start with cleaner files.

How to Minimize Flare with Camera Settings

Aperture choice is your first lever. Stopping down often reduces ghosting but can increase starbursts and diffraction, so test your lens to find its sweet spot, which is usually between f/5.6 and f/11.

Protect your highlights by exposing a touch darker than usual and always shoot RAW. If the scene has extreme contrast, use auto-bracketing so you can blend later without pushing noisy shadows.

Make tiny angle changes while watching live view. A half-step left or a slight tilt can remove a ghost entirely, which is the fastest way to minimize the problem before hitting the shutter.

Pull off polarizers and strong NDs to test when you see flare. Polarizers can add reflections or produce odd color when the sun is near the frame.

Use live view with exposure simulation and magnify to check for ghosts at the taking aperture. If your camera has a depth-of-field preview, press it while watching the screen so you see the actual starburst shape and any hidden ghosts.

Try these starting points and adjust for your scene. For a backlit portrait, work around f/4 to f/5.6 and set exposure at zero to minus one EV to protect highlights while keeping skin tones bright.

For a landscape with the sun grazing the edge, start at f/8 to f/11 and bracket from minus two to plus two EV if needed. For night streetlights, go f/8 to f/16 if you want crisp starbursts, or open up to reduce ghosts and keep contrast clean.

These settings are only a base. The real key for how to fix lens flare in camera is to combine small angle changes, a sensible aperture, and RAW files you can push later.

How to Fix Lens Flare in Post-Processing

Always begin with the RAW file so you have maximum detail. Lower highlights, lift shadows gently, nudge whites and blacks to rebuild contrast, and set a neutral white balance to remove any warm haze from veiling flare.

Make global moves first. Add a small amount of Dehaze and a touch of contrast or clarity, but watch edges and skies so you do not introduce halos or banding.

Use local tools in Lightroom to target the problem. Heal or Clone removes small ghost dots, a Graduated or Radial Filter with a little Dehaze can clear veiling, and an Adjustment Brush can restore contrast or correct a color cast in specific areas.

When a ghost sits on detailed texture, move to Photoshop. Duplicate the background layer, then try Spot Healing on the smallest artifacts to keep texture natural.

Switch to the Healing Brush or Clone Stamp to rebuild consistent texture. Pro tip: if a removed ghost creates a texture mismatch, sample from the area directly adjacent and paint at low opacity in short strokes for a seamless blend.

Use the Patch Tool or Content-Aware Fill on larger, less detailed areas. Clean up edges with a soft brush on a mask so transitions look natural.

Rebuild local contrast with Curves or Levels on adjustment layers and mask them into only the hazy zones. If color is off, use Hue/Saturation or Selective Color on a separate layer and set the blend mode to Color or Luminosity to control what changes.

If highlights are blown beyond recovery, composite a darker bracket or a second frame where the sun was blocked. You can also borrow nearby texture with careful cloning, but avoid repeating patterns that the eye can spot.

A sensible tool order keeps quality high. Try Healing Brush first, then Clone Stamp, then Patch or Content-Aware, and only then move to Curves, Hue/Sat, and gentle local dodging and burning to restore shape and depth.

Here are starting slider ranges to test, not rules. Dehaze from plus ten to plus forty, Clarity from plus five to plus twenty-five, and exposure trims in tenths so the image remains natural.

Example workflow you can follow today: open the RAW in Lightroom, pull highlights to minus fifty and Dehaze to plus fifteen, then remove three small ghosts with Heal. Send to Photoshop, clone out the last big ghost at low opacity, add a Curves layer to lift midtones only in the veiled corner, then save back to Lightroom for final color polish.

Quick-fix cheat sheet for the field and for your desk. In the field, use the hood, shade with your hand, remove the filter, shift the angle, and shoot RAW; in post, use Dehaze, Spot Removal, Clone or Heal, Curves for contrast, and if needed blend bracketed shots for highlights.

Creative note: sometimes flare is the mood. Keep a gentle veil in a backlit portrait if it adds emotion, but fix it when it distracts from the subject or kills color and detail.

Common mistake to avoid: overdoing Dehaze until skies turn muddy and halos appear around trees. Another frequent error is hammering Clarity so skin and clouds look crunchy and unnatural.

Accessibility and SEO help your images and pages. Use descriptive captions and alt text like “remove lens flare in Lightroom step by step,” “remove lens flare in Photoshop clone example,” and “prevent lens flare when shooting sun with hood.”

Visual suggestions for this section: a Lightroom Basic panel before and after showing Dehaze and highlights, then a Photoshop layers panel with Healing and Cloning on separate layers, and a final cleaned image beside the original. Suggested alt text: “Lightroom dehaze before after,” “Photoshop clone and heal layers,” and “lens flare fixed final result.”

By building these habits in the field and a simple workflow at your desk, how to fix lens flare becomes easy and repeatable. The goal is not perfection every time, but control, so flare appears only when you want it and never when you do not.

What People Ask Most

Final Thoughts on Lens Flare

You came in with a simple question — can you control lens flare and keep the shot? By walking through identification tests (look at frame 270 in the sample), on-set fixes, camera settings and a Lightroom→Photoshop workflow, this guide gives you the practical tools to preserve contrast, protect highlights and decide when flare becomes a creative asset for backlit and street shooters. That practical focus is what makes the difference between losing a shot and saving a keeper.

Be realistic: some ghosting and veiling are baked into certain lens and light pairings, and heavy-handed clean-up can introduce texture mismatches or halos. Use the field checks and modest post sliders suggested here so you salvage images without over-processing and keep results that still feel natural.

If the opening hook asked whether flare can be a feature, you now have step-by-step experiments and fixes to test that idea yourself. Keep shooting into the light and treat flare as another compositional tool — you’ll learn its patterns and make more confident images.