Removing glare off water

[TerriNoleeen]

How do I remove the glare from water in my images?

 

[clee01l]

The simple answer is that you use a polarizing filter on the camera lens BEFORE you take the photo. Simply stated glare is an over exposed part of the image. Once over exposed, you can not put color information back in. As digital values recorded by the sensor, White and Black are the presence and absence of all color information (all ones or all zeros). Colors are the numbers in between. If there is any color information present in the whites or darks, you can amplify that to boost the color values. Once you have achieved all ones in the binary value for the pixel there is no way to convert the binary ones to some binary value for a color.
The best that you can do in LR is to work with the pixels around the edges of the all white area to boost the color of the pixels that are near white but retain some color information. The highlights adjustment slider can help as can reducing the local exposure with the local adjustment brush.

 

[Packhorse-4]

Removing the glare in post processing can be very challenging. Your best option is to use a polarizing filter on your camera lens when taking the photo. In Lightroom, you can reduce the Highlights and Whites while decreasing the black point in certain areas with the brush tool or the radial filter, but this is the challenging part. If you have a really bright white glare on your image and you reduce the highlights, you may be able to recover some of the information, but it's more likely that your Bright White area will turn into a less bright grey area.

 

[Packhorse-4]

Good morning Cletus - looks like we were typing at the same time.

 

[TerriNoleeen]

Thanks - I know I needed that filter! Got one for next time
I'll try your suggestions
Thanks for the helpful info!